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From bulatlat.com --
There is Leona Florentino who actually wrote love poems for women; but Ilocano literature scholars would not dare see the mother of Isabelo de los Reyes in such an “unflattering” light. The official story is that her poems like Para ken Carmen had been “commissioned” by men who wanted to impress the women they were courting. However, in her poem Nalpay a Namnama, Florentino talks about a love that is hopeless and doomed from the start because she loves a woman. In line 10, she claims to love "iti maysa a imnas." The Filipino translation of Isagani R. Cruz uses musa for the word imnas, which suggests that it is a woman, but is still ambivalent. My source, Clarita Gaoat of Vigan, Ilocos Sur, explains that imnas is actually a synonym for balasang, dalaga in Filipino, maiden in English. How can we keep denying Leona Florentino's love for women when she herself has made it quite clear?
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