By Hershey Losa
On the afternoon of October 1, 2025, the UA&P History Department and UA&P Kallos hosted a lecture that transformed an ordinary classroom into a space filled with both intrigue and unease. Dr. Joachim “Joem” Antonio unraveled Nick Joaquin’s The House on Zapote Street, a story so chilling and layered that the curious audience almost spilled into the hallway.
What struck me first was the context behind the piece. Joaquin wrote it under his pen name, Quijano de Manila, blending his two worlds: journalism and literature. He managed to write this story in just over a week, yet it carried the weight of a true crime account. I couldn’t help but admire his dedication—how he managed to make fact read like fiction without losing any of its truth. Dr. Joem even reminded us that twenty years later, the story inspired the film Kisapmata, which demonstrated Joaquin’s skill in embedding journalistic clarity within a literary framework. What might seem like fiction at first glance was, in fact, a factual account of a family tragedy, reminding the audience of the strange, unsettling overlap between art and life.
As the lecture went on, I found myself drawn to the techniques Joaquin used. Dr. Joem talked about his “literary camera,” the way the story zooms in from different angles until it fixes on the house on Zapote Street. Suddenly, the house wasn’t just a setting—it started to feel alive, like it had a presence of its own. This camera effect allowed readers to zoom into the psychological tension at Zapote Street. The more I thought about it, the more the house seemed to breathe an impending doom into the story, its split-level suburban style quietly showing Pablo Cabading’s pride and grip on his family. Equally intriguing was the mention of Chekhov’s gun: the two fierce dogs introduced early in the narrative seemed poised for importance but faded after a single dramatic description for Cabading. Whether intentional or not, Dr. Joem emphasized this kind of imperfection makes Joaquin’s writing more authentic—closer to real life, where not every thread ties neatly.
Other techniques emphasized the story’s journalistic roots. Dates and timelines grounded the narrative, while subtle hints, such as the presence of then-Senator Ferdinand Marcos as a wedding sponsor, revealed the social rituals of kinship and influence in Filipino culture. And then there were the chilling dialogues that felt like they belonged in a thriller: “If she goes with you, I’ll shoot her head before your eyes.”
During the Q&A, I found myself fascinated by how language revealed Cabading’s character. This made me remember the idea of “idiolect,” a person’s unique way of speaking. Cabading’s repeated lines, “I built this house for Lydia” that later on transformed to the eeriest line “…the pretty little house that Pablo Cabading built for his Lydia” weren’t just statements—it showed his obsession, his twisted sense of ownership over his daughter. That moment reminded me how the arrangement of words can uncover truths characters try to hide.
What stayed with me most after the lecture was Sir Jaime Benitez’ point about it being almost spoiler-proof—we enter knowing tragedy awaits, yet the horror still lands. We go into the story knowing it ends in violence, but no matter how prepared we think we are, the brutality still catches us off guard. That’s the real horror: not just the crime, but the reminder that these things actually happen. And the fact that Joaquin wrote it like a story we could read today—that’s both terrifying and important. It means we can’t simply just look away.
Walking out of the lecture, I felt unsettled but also grateful. Unsettled, because the story will always creep into my mind whenever I think of ordinary houses hiding unthinkable things. Grateful, because writers like Nick Joaquin remind us that even the darkest truths are worth telling, no matter how much they haunt us.
Photo by Ramon Borlongan
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