Despite the rich landscape of Philippine literature, there remains a limited understanding of how specific literary forms and their linguistic delivery influence students' motivation to read across the archipelago. Grounded in Guthrie and Wigfield's Engagement Model, this study addresses this gap by exploring the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that shape learners' engagement with local texts. Utilizing an exploratory qualitative design, the study involved 18 language students purposefully selected from the Philippines' three major island groups, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, who participated in semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis revealed a duality in reading motivation: while learners are primarily driven to read contemporary genres due to their social realism and linguistic accessibility via "Taglish", they simultaneously exhibit deep engagement with complex historical narratives like Noli Me Tangere. This finding suggests that historical consciousness, the desire for identity reclamation, can override linguistic barriers regardless of regional background. The study concludes that effective literature instruction must navigate both the psychological need for mirroring lived experiences and the sociological need for anchoring a unified national identity. These insights support a pedagogical strategy of thematic pairing, where educators integrate high-interest contemporary texts with canonical works to optimize student engagement on a national scale.