Through the fictional novel Singkol recalled the hardships experienced by the Filipinos during the occupation. Singkol was described to be a coward, a "supot" or an uncircumcised man who did not only run away from such a “ritual of manhood” but also evaded his “foxhole in Bataan when the Japanese soldiers were closing in”. Singkol was a “runner” or “evader” throughout much of his lifetime, while being haunted by the “poverty of his boyhood” and of the “treachery that he may have committed” in the past.