LAST FEBRUARY 19, 2026, Linda Ty-Casper's noted protest Martial Law novella, A SMALL PARTY IN A GARDEN: REVISED AND CRITICAL EDITION, was launched by the Ateneo de Manila's Literary and Cultural Studies Program (LCSP), courtesy of Dr. Charlie Samuya Veric.
The book launch took place after a Conversation by publisher Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Dr. Charlie Samuya Veric. Held at the Lobby of de la Costa Hall, the launch began with remarks from Ms Manguerra Brainard, as well as a message sent by Linda Ty-Casper.
Set in the Philippines during Marcos Dictatorship, A Small Party in a Garden tells the story of a privileged woman who is the right-hand woman of Imelda Marcos, and who, through the events transpiring from the titular party in a garden learns first hand what brutality meant under Martial Law.
This was followed by four student reactors, who each gave their thoughts on Linda Ty-Casper and her protest novella. These student reactors were, Ms Francesca Abalos, AB Literature in English from Ateneo de Manila; Ms Alyssa Marie Lopez, undergraduate intern from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines; and Ms Sofia Ysabel Bernardo and Mr Stephen Seth Zagala, both MA students in Literary and Cultural Studies from Ateneo de Manila.
The event concluded with closing remarks by Dr Jonathan Chua, former Dean of the School of Humanities.
Following are three responses by the Ateneo scholars. For further related readings, there are links to the Introduction of the book by Dr. Charlie Samuya Veric and an article about Linda Ty-Casper by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard.
***
Francesca S. Abalos
A Response to Linda Ty-Casper
Copyright 2026 by Francessca S. Abalos
WHEN I WAS ASKED to talk about who Linda Ty-Casper is to me, I first thought of Manila City’s Victims of Martial Law Memorial Wall in the Mehan Garden. It is a small black marble monument, featuring the names of Manileños killed, tortured, and vanished during Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship.The monument is always messy when I go, covered in leaves and dust and water stains. None of these details make the Memorial Wall any less impactful—several hundred martyred and disappeared makes an impression, even if their names never truly stick in my memory.You see, the scale of devastation is how I was taught to remember Martial Law: Figures on how our national debt and poverty ballooned and, of course, the statistics of its human toll. A fixation on macroscopic commemoration, which I find often removes the personhood behind names on a wall.
This is not the intention of the Memorial Wall, after all, its epigraph ends with this: “It is erected in the hope of inspiring people, especially the youth, to lead worthy lives, pursuing always the public good over self-interest, emboldened in their quest by the example of those who championed truth, liberty, and justice in one of the Republic’s darkest hours.” When we look at its marble inscriptions, we are meant to recognize the lives these Manileños led and, more pointedly, the lives they could have led if the Marcos dictatorship had not siphoned them away. But I think we do not really understand any of this when all we see is a name without a story.
.png)
.jpg)
