Rio Alma’s latest collection of poems incorporates the poet’s rare intuitive understanding of relevant issues with the use of native Tagalog forms, styles and motifs. After all, these forms, styles and motifs may be retained and articulated by many contemporary Filipino artists and scholars through their respective creative and critical productions. But the employment of ancient or native poetic forms may also translate what is “being Filipino” into more fully human terms. For Rio Alma, problematizing Philippine culture and society is simultaneously aesthetic, ethical and pedagogical.