Cheeno Marlo Sayuno and Aaron Asis illuminate a nation’s wounds in Sayaw ng mga Ilaw

A nation’s most dangerous stories are not always those that expose its history, but those that reveal how easily history can be silenced, sanitized, and inherited as forgetfulness. In Sayaw ng mga Ilaw (Dance of the Lights), Cheeno Marlo Sayuno, with evocative illustrations by Aaron Asis, challenges the assumption that children’s literature must protect young readers from the disturbing realities of their country’s past. Published by Tahanan Books for Young Readers in 2024, this bilingual picture book confronts the violence and lingering consequences of Martial Law through Laya, a young girl who longs to learn the Pandanggo-Oasiwas from her older sister, Kala. What begins as a story about childhood, folk dance, and familial affection gradually reveals how political oppression enters the home, fractures relationships, silences witnesses, and shapes which lives are remembered.

The book’s central achievement lies in its transformation of a traditional Filipino dance into an act of historical resistance. Yet its tenderness also raises a critical question: how can children’s literature make painful history accessible without allowing an individual tragedy to stand in for the full complexity of collective experience? By bringing together the intimate struggles of a family and the broader realities of political oppression, Sayuno and Asis create a work that is both emotionally compelling and historically significant. It is within this tension between artistic beauty and political urgency that Sayaw ng mga Ilaw establishes its value.

Set in 1981, while Martial Law continued to shape the lives of ordinary Filipinos, the story follows Laya as she waits for Kala to come home and teach her the Pandanggo-Oasiwas, a traditional Philippine folk dance performed with lighted glasses balanced on the head and hands. Their father, Tatay Ondeng, is a construction worker assigned to the Manila Film Center, a project associated with national spectacle and political ambition. When the structure collapses and workers die, the family experiences a loss inseparable from the larger machinery of power, labor, and silence. Meanwhile, Kala becomes involved in student journalism and resistance, placing herself at risk in a society where speaking out can have dangerous consequences.

Sayuno tells this history through Laya, whose understanding is necessarily partial and still developing. This is an effective narrative choice because children often experience political violence first through its effects on the people they love. They notice absences before they understand ideologies, recognize fear before they can name its causes, and hear conversations stop without knowing why. Through Laya’s perspective, the reader encounters history not as a distant sequence of political events but as an intimate disruption of family life. In this way, Sayuno makes history personal without diminishing its political dimensions, allowing young readers to begin understanding how authoritarianism shapes the lives, relationships, and everyday experiences of ordinary people.

Sayuno trusts young readers with an uncomfortable history. The book does not reduce Martial Law to a vague atmosphere of sadness or a simple conflict between good and evil. Instead, it brings together the Manila Film Center tragedy, the surveillance of dissenters, student journalism, political intimidation, and the persistence of fear beyond the formal end of the regime. These details reveal how authoritarianism extends beyond government offices and public demonstrations, reaching into the rhythms of domestic life. It influences when people leave home, what they say at the dinner table, which questions they dare to ask, and how they interpret the silence of those around them. Laya’s questions about Kala’s late arrivals and growing distance reveal the personal costs of political resistance, allowing readers to understand how public events reshape private relationships.

Kala’s involvement in student journalism is not presented as abstract heroism but as a response to her growing awareness that events must be documented and discussed. Her commitment to writing reflects the importance of recording experiences that powerful institutions might prefer to suppress. Through Kala, Sayuno emphasizes that resistance involves not only confronting political authority but also challenging the disappearance of suffering from public memory. Journalism becomes a means of preserving experiences, questioning dominant narratives, and ensuring that the lives of ordinary people are not erased from history. By connecting Kala’s work to Laya’s limited understanding of the world around her, the book demonstrates how the struggle over historical memory begins within everyday life, where silence, fear, and the courage to speak shape what future generations will know about the past. 

The Pandanggo-Oasiwas serves as a sustained metaphor for the relationship between individual lives and national history. The dance requires balance, coordination, concentration, and the willingness to continue despite the possibility of failure. At first, Laya struggles with a tin can balanced on her head; it falls, rolls away, and frustrates her. As the story develops, the dance takes on deeper meaning. Its lighted glasses evoke memory, while the dancers’ careful movements suggest the precarious effort required to preserve dignity and hope amid violence. Light can illuminate darkness but can also be extinguished; glass can carry light but can break. These possibilities keep the symbolism from becoming merely sentimental. The dance does not promise that suffering will disappear. Instead, it suggests that people can continue carrying something worth protecting. Passed from one generation to another, the tradition becomes a way of bringing memory into a future that might otherwise be severed from the past.

The relationship between Laya and Kala gives the story much of its emotional complexity. At first, Kala is the older sister who possesses a skill Laya longs to learn. As Kala becomes more involved in student journalism and political resistance, she grows less available to the child who admires her. Laya cannot understand why conversations are postponed or why the household is burdened by an anxiety nobody explains. Sayuno allows her frustration to remain understandable without making Kala seem selfish or unloving. Their distance is not simply an ordinary sibling disagreement; it is shaped by the conditions under which Kala must act. Her courage exposes her to danger and separates her from those who need her. Kala is admirable but vulnerable, while Laya’s love does not automatically give her the understanding she wants. Their bond shows how political repression can damage intimate relationships without necessarily destroying the love that sustains them.

Tatay Ondeng’s story connects the grand promises of national development to the lives of working people. As a construction worker, he contributes to a project presented as a symbol of progress and prestige. The collapse of the Manila Film Center exposes the human cost concealed beneath that spectacle. The building is meant to project achievement, but for Laya’s family it becomes inseparable from the loss of a father and husband. Sayuno asks readers to consider who benefits from grand national projects, whose labor makes them possible, and whose suffering is excluded from official accounts. Tatay does not need to deliver a political argument for the critique to register. His ordinary gestures, coming home in his work clothes, kissing Nanay goodbye, and trying to provide for his family, establish the security that Laya takes for granted. When he is gone, the household must reorganize itself around an absence that cannot be repaired. Through Tatay, the book insists that the history of authoritarianism and political spectacle must also be understood through workers, families, and communities treated as expendable in the pursuit of public grandeur.

The Manila Film Center episode exposes the distance between official spectacle and human suffering. Buildings, monuments, ceremonies, and cultural events can project national achievement, but the appearance of progress is not the same as justice. A fuller account must ask whose labor was demanded, what risks were imposed, and which deaths were acknowledged or forgotten. By bringing the consequences of the collapse into a children’s story, Sayuno makes a difficult historical issue accessible without stripping it of moral seriousness. The film center becomes more than a reference to a historical incident: it symbolizes a political order in which spectacle can overshadow ordinary lives. For young readers, this offers an introduction to historical thinking. To understand a national event, one must look beyond its official presentation and ask whose experiences have been left out.

Kala’s involvement in the student publication also grounds resistance in everyday work. The newspapers she brings home are not merely props establishing her identity as a journalist; they are evidence of a world Laya cannot yet fully read but can begin to recognize. Journalism requires people to gather information, decide what to publish, and accept the risks of telling stories others would rather suppress. The newspaper represents the possibility of speaking publicly when silence has become a political expectation. It also reminds readers that the struggle over history begins while events are still unfolding: people must decide what to document and how to preserve the experiences of those who might otherwise be forgotten. For contemporary readers surrounded by information, misinformation, and competing historical narratives, Kala’s commitment shows that information is not simply a collection of words and images. Its production and circulation can be acts of responsibility and, under repression, acts of courage.

The book’s treatment of time avoids the comforting suggestion that the end of Martial Law immediately resolves the family’s suffering. Even after the regime’s formal end, Laya and Kala’s lives remain burdened by fear, grief, and uncertainty. Political regimes can end on paper while their social and emotional consequences persist. Families continue to live with unresolved losses; survivors may struggle to speak; and people accustomed to silence may find it difficult to trust that speaking is safe. By refusing a neat historical resolution, Sayuno shows how the past remains present through habits, memories, and absences. Remembrance is not simply looking backward. It is an ongoing effort to recognize how history continues to shape relationships, institutions, and collective values.

Aaron Asis’s illustrations are integral to the book’s storytelling. His expressive brushwork, carefully composed figures, and rich palette allow light to function as both a physical presence and an emotional language. The illustrations do more than repeat the text: they create an atmosphere in which readers can sense the tension between intimacy and danger, movement and stillness, hope and loss. Warm tones associated with the dance and the lighted glasses contrast with darker spaces and uneasy domestic moments. Asis understands that a story about authoritarianism need not depict explicit violence on every page. Fear can emerge through the distance between figures, the direction of a gaze, the emptiness of a room, or the way a body occupies a space. Such visual choices are especially important in a picture book, where images may communicate emotional information before young readers can fully interpret the words.

The cover’s vivid red background, dancer, and silhouettes of a crowd establish a tension between cultural performance and political unrest. The red is energetic but not simply celebratory; against the shadows of raised hands and indistinct figures, the lights acquire an urgency beyond the performance itself. Inside the book, Asis’s illustrations bring this tension into the domestic sphere, where ordinary gestures carry emotional weight. His characters convey children’s vulnerability, working adults’ exhaustion, and family strain without exaggerated expressions or simplistic symbolism. He also understands how children inhabit a world that adults do not fully explain. The tin can Laya balances, the glasses used in the dance, and the newspapers associated with Kala’s work are familiar objects whose meanings deepen as the narrative unfolds. The images reward close looking: readers can notice an object’s placement, a character’s expression, or a visual contrast that changes meaning beside the text.

The illustrations of the Pandanggo-Oasiwas deserve particular appreciation. The dance is not decorative material added merely to make the story recognizably Filipino; it is central to the narrative’s structure and emotional vocabulary. Asis makes its movements, objects, and lights memorable, helping readers understand both Laya’s longing to learn it and its eventual significance. The dance becomes a meeting point between generations and a way of remembering those who are absent. Its movement also counters the stillness associated with grief: where loss can leave a family unable to speak, dance offers expression through the body. Yet the tradition remains a dance grounded in Philippine cultural experience, not merely an allegory for resistance. The collaboration between Sayuno and Asis succeeds because literary and visual storytelling remain inseparable. The prose establishes historical context and emotional stakes, while composition, color, gesture, and rhythm allow readers to experience tensions that words alone might only explain.

As a bilingual English and Filipino publication, Sayaw ng mga Ilaw contributes to the possibilities of children’s literature in the Philippines. Its two language versions create opportunities for reading at home, in classrooms, libraries, and community programs, while opening discussion about translation and the movement of stories between linguistic communities. The English text identifies itself as translated by the author, making translation part of the book’s literary history. Self-translation involves choices about rhythm, emphasis, cultural explanation, and emotional register; it is not simply a mechanical transfer of words. Educators can use the book to consider how images and historical meanings are communicated across languages. Its bilingual form also raises a wider question for Philippine publishing: how can stories rooted in local histories and cultural traditions reach broader audiences while preserving the specificity of the communities from which they emerge? The book offers a persuasive example of bilingual publication serving both accessibility and cultural memory.

The book’s recognition on the 2025 IBBY Honour List for writing places it within a broader conversation about literary quality and children’s books that address consequential subjects. This recognition matters because the work takes young readers seriously. Children’s literature is often expected to reassure, resolve conflict quickly, or avoid histories adults themselves find uncomfortable. Sayaw ng mga Ilaw challenges that expectation. Children already live in a world shaped by political decisions, social inequalities, family histories, and competing accounts of the past. Avoiding every difficult subject may leave them without the language or interpretive tools to understand that world. Sayuno does not ask children to carry the full burden of historical responsibility, nor does he claim that a picture book can explain every dimension of Martial Law. Instead, the book offers an emotionally grounded point of entry: its characters make the past tangible, its symbols invite reflection, and its unresolved pain creates room for conversation.

For teachers, librarians, and parents, the book offers rich possibilities for discussion, provided it is presented thoughtfully. It should not be used merely as a supplementary text for memorizing dates or identifying historical figures. Readers can explore how Laya understands changes in her family, why Kala writes for the student publication, what Tatay’s work reveals about labor and political power, and why the dance becomes an act of remembrance. Older readers can examine the representation of Martial Law, the role of journalism, and the contrast between official narratives of progress and the experiences of those who bear its costs. Younger readers can begin with family, fear, courage, and the importance of listening to others. Because the story includes grief, political intimidation, and a parent’s death, educators may need to adapt discussions to children’s ages and experiences. A sensitive approach would neither sensationalize these elements nor avoid them; it would allow questions, acknowledge uncertainty, and show that historical understanding requires both evidence and empathy.

A critical reading must also acknowledge the limits of telling a complex political history within a picture book. Laya’s perspective creates emotional accessibility but necessarily restricts the range of historical experiences represented. No single fictional household can stand for all workers, activists, journalists, and families who lived through Martial Law. Likewise, the symbolism of light and dance is powerful, but it becomes most productive when readers connect the story with historical evidence beyond the page. Teachers and parents may need to provide additional context about the Manila Film Center, labor conditions during its construction, political repression, and resistance to the dictatorship. This does not diminish the literary work; it extends the questions it raises. The book is best understood as a carefully shaped literary encounter with history, not a comprehensive historical account. Its contribution is to establish an emotional and imaginative relationship with the past that can motivate further inquiry into evidence, multiple perspectives, and the ways history is represented.

The book’s treatment of hope contains a similar tension. The persistence of light and the continuation of the dance suggest endurance, but they do not imply that love, cultural tradition, or individual courage can undo political violence. Laya’s family has suffered a loss that a performance cannot repair; Kala’s activism cannot guarantee her safety; and the end of Martial Law does not restore the household to its former life. Hope is therefore most convincing as a decision to continue living, remembering, and acting despite damage. This is more ethically responsible than a familiar story in which adversity exists only to make characters stronger. The book allows grief to remain grief and recognizes that some absences cannot be filled. Yet it also suggests that suffering need not determine the entire future. The dance continues because people choose to carry it forward. The light remains meaningful because someone accepts the responsibility of keeping it alive. Such hope is not passive optimism but a commitment to memory, cultural inheritance, and the possibility of a more just future.

Sayaw ng mga Ilaw: Dance of the Lights succeeds because it connects history to the lives of people who must endure its consequences. Sayuno brings the realities of Martial Law into children’s literature without disguising their severity. His narrative is tender toward childhood, attentive to family relationships, and unafraid to show how political repression enters ordinary life. The book’s courage lies in its storytelling choices: it allows a child to ask questions adults cannot readily answer, makes a father’s absence felt at the dinner table, gives a student newspaper the weight of a moral decision, and turns a traditional dance into a means of carrying grief, resistance, and memory across generations. Asis’s expressive illustrations are essential to this achievement. Through color, light, gesture, and composition, he creates an emotional landscape that strengthens the narrative without overwhelming it. Together, writer and illustrator show that children’s literature can be artistically accomplished, culturally grounded, and politically courageous.

The book’s most lasting insistence is that remembering is not passive. Memory must be practiced, shared, and protected from forces that seek to diminish it. The dance is beautiful because it requires discipline and care, but its beauty is inseparable from the circumstances that give it meaning. Laya inherits not a neatly resolved history but questions, grief, a cultural tradition, and the responsibility to decide what to do with them. The lighted glasses become an image of the work every generation must undertake: the past can illuminate the present only if people are willing to look at it honestly, and cultural traditions can sustain communities only if they are practiced and passed on. Sayaw ng mga Ilaw deserves a place in conversations about children’s literature, Philippine history, and cultural memory because it respects its young audience, honors the artistic possibilities of illustration, and connects the delicate light of a traditional dance to the larger struggle to preserve truth, dignity, and hope. Its final question is not simply whether the lights can survive the darkness, but whether we are willing to protect them. A nation cannot build an honest future by asking its children to forget the suffering that shaped the present, nor can it honor its cultural heritage while remaining indifferent to the people whose lives and labor sustain it. The lights continue to dance because the story refuses to let them disappear; in a country where historical memory remains contested, that refusal is itself an act of courage.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and educator at the University of the Philippines Visayas. He teaches in the Division of Professional Education and at UP High School in Iloilo. He currently serves as faculty-in-charge of the UP Visayas Language Program and as secretary of the National Committee on Literary Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). His poetry has been recognized by the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.