From August 2016 to October 2018, the writer Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz maintained a weekly column in the Davao daily Mindanao Times. Her essays there, collected in this book for the first time, provide a snapshot of the sociopolitical life of Davao City and the country in the first half of President Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency from the point of view of a Mindanawon creative writer. This book provides material evidence of the writing that led to the author’s political persecution as well as her experiments to embody her lesbian identity in the space of the opinion column. Lugar Lang is ultimately a testament to the persistence of a writer’s dissent within the repressive environment of the bailiwick of the Dutertes.

Published in 2024.