Play: Ang pagong at ang matsing

Overview
Jose Rizal’s Ang Pagong at ang Matsing dramatizes a familiar folk fable as a compact morality play about wit triumphing over greed. Centered on a wily turtle and a vain, opportunistic monkey, the piece unfolds in clear episodic scenes that trace a quarrel over a banana plant into a contest of cunning and, finally, an ironic reversal. The language and situations are simple and direct, keeping the tale accessible while sharpening its moral edge.

Setting and Characters
The action takes place along a riverbank and in a clearing where a banana plant can be tended, a rustic landscape that allows the animal characters to behave like villagers in a small community. Pagong (the Turtle) is slow-moving but patient, observant, and resourceful, forever testing the limits of a stronger rival through strategy. Matsing (the Monkey) is quick and boastful, dazzled by appearances, and certain that strength and clever talk will always win him the advantage.

Plot
A floating banana shoot appears on the river, and the two animals claim it. They agree to divide the plant, with Matsing snatching the leafy top and Pagong taking the lower portion with roots. The choice, driven by showy appearances rather than knowledge, sets the trajectory of the conflict. Matsing’s portion wilts and dies; Pagong’s takes root, grows, and promises fruit. As the bunch ripens, Matsing returns, proposing a scheme to share the harvest by guarding the tree in turns. He takes the day watch, leaving the slow turtle to the night.

The arrangement is a sham. While on daytime duty, Matsing secretly plucks the bananas, arriving hungry and departing full, leaving the tree seemingly untouched by nightfall. Pagong, suspecting treachery when no fruit remains by his turn, surrounds the trunk with sharp thorns to deter the thief. When Matsing next scampers up to steal, he is torn and bloodied, his deceit exposed by the trap.

Climax and Resolution
Enraged and humiliated, Matsing seizes Pagong and declares that he will kill him as punishment for the trick. What follows is a verbal duel that forms the play’s comic high point. Pagong, feigning terror at each suggestion, guides Matsing toward the one fate that is no fate at all. He protests at the idea of being thrown into the water, pleading that it would be the worst of all deaths. Predictably, and thinking himself cruelly inventive, Matsing chooses exactly that. He hurls the turtle into the river, where Pagong immediately resurfaces, buoyed by his shell and perfectly at home, and jeers at his persecutor from the safety of the water. The would-be execution becomes a liberation, and Matsing is left on the bank, smarting from both wounds and ridicule.

Themes and Tone
The play threads its episodes with a steady moral: patience, foresight, and practical knowledge outlast selfishness and bluster. The banana plant division dramatizes the danger of judging by surfaces; the guard-and-steal ruse exposes the emptiness of bad-faith agreements; the thorny trap and sham pleading show ingenuity turning the oppressor’s force back upon himself. Humor softens the fable’s sharp edges, but the satire is unmistakable: those who exploit partners and mock the humble eventually engineer their own undoing. In giving the last word to the turtle, the play affirms a folk ethic of resilience, the small and seemingly weak survive by knowing their element, preparing quietly, and speaking cleverly at the decisive moment.