Canonical Authors and Works of Philippine National Artist in Literature

Members:

Kim Diamond Moreno

Christian Ray Penaranda

Joshua De leon

Dyan Wendy Daffon

Joseph Ricks Almeria

1. Cirilo F. Bautista (born July 9, 1941) is a Filipino poet, fictionist, critic and writer of
nonfiction. He was conferred with the National Artist of the Philippines award in 2014.

Born on July 9, 1941 (age 75)

Education[edit]

He received his basic education from Legarda Elementary School (1st Honorable
Mention, 1954) and Mapa High School (Valedictorian, 1959). He received his degrees in
AB Literature from the University of Santo Tomas (magna cum laude, 1963), MA
Literature from St. Louis University, Baguio City (magna cum laude, 1968), and Doctor
of Arts in Language and Literature from De La Salle University-Manila (1990). He
received a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at the University of
Iowa (19681969) and was awarded an honorary degreethe only Filipino to have
been so honored there.

Career[edit]

Bautista taught creative writing and literature at St. Louis University (19631968) and
the University of Santo Tomas (19691970) before moving to De La Salle University-
Manila in 1970. He is also a co-founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council
(PLAC) and a member of the Manila Critics Circle, Philippine Center of International
PEN and the Philippine Writers Academy.

Bautista has also received Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards (for poetry, fiction and
essay in English and Filipino) as well as Philippines Free Press Awards for Fiction,
Manila Critics' Circle National Book Awards, Gawad Balagtas from the Unyon ng mga
Manunulat ng Pilipinas, the Pablo Roman Prize for the Novel, and the highest
accolades from the City of Manila, Quezon City and Iligan City. Bautista was hailed in
1993 as Makata ng Taon by the Komisyon ng mga Wika ng Pilipinas for winning the
poetry contest sponsored by the government. The last part of his epic trilogy The Trilogy
of Saint Lazarus, entitled Sunlight on Broken Stones, won the Centennial Prize for the
epic in 1998. He was an exchange professor in Waseda University and Ohio University.
He became an Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa in 1969,
and was the first recipient of a British Council fellowship as a creative writer at Trinity
College, Cambridge in 1987.

Bautista works include Boneyard Breaking, Sugat ng Salita, The Archipelago, Telex
Moon, Summer Suns, Charts, The Cave and Other Poems, Kirot ng Kataga, and Bullets
and Roses: The Poetry of Amado V. Hernandez. His novel Galaw ng Asoge was
published by the University of Santo Tomas Press in 2004. His latest book, Believe and
Betray: New and Collected Poems, appeared in 2006, published by De La Salle
University Press.

His poems have appeared in major literary journals, papers, and magazines in the
Philippines and in anthologies published in the United States, Japan, the Netherlands,
China, Romania, Hong Kong, Germany and Malaysia. These include: excerpts from
Sunlight on Broken Stones, published in World Literature Today, USA, Spring 2000;
What Rizal Told Me (poem), published in Manoa, University of Hawaii, 1997; She of the
Quick Hands: My Daughter and The Seagull (poems), published in English Teachers
Portfolio of Multicultural Activities, edited by John Cowen (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1996).

Aside from his teaching, creative and research activities as a Professor Emeritus of
Literature at the College of Liberal Arts, De La Salle University-Manila, Bautista is also a
columnist and literary editor of the Philippine Panorama, the Sunday Supplement of the
Manila Bulletin. He is also a member of the Board of Advisers and Associate,
Bienvenido Santos Creative Writing Center of De La Salle University-Manila and Senior
Associate, The Center for Creative Writing and Studies of the University of Santo
Tomas.

Works[edit]

Poetry[edit]

Summer Suns (with Albert Casuga, 1963)

The Cave and Other Poems (1968)

The Archipelago (1970)

Charts (1973)

Telex Moon (1981)

Sugat ng Salita (1985)

Kirot Ng Kataga (1995),

Sunlight On Broken Stones (2000)

Tinik Sa Dila: Isang Katipunan Ng Mga Tula (2003)

The Trilogy Of Saint Lazarus (2001)

Believe and Betray: New and Collected Poems (2007)

Fiction[edit]

Stories (1990)

Galaw ng Asoge (2004)

Literary Theory and Cultural Studies[edit]

Breaking Signs (1990)

Words And Battlefields: A Theoria On The Poem (1998)

The Estrella D. Alfon Anthology Vol. I Short Stories (2000)

Bullets And Roses: The Poetry Of Amado V. Hernandez / A Bilingual Edition (translated
Into English And With A Critical Introduction) (2002)

Awards, Prizes and Honors[edit]

First Prize in Epic Writing English Category, of the National Centennial Commissions
Literary Contests, 1998, sponsored by the Philippine Government. The judges in this
prestigious contest, held to commemorate the Centennial of our freedom, gave the prize
to Bautistas Sunlight on Broken Stones, the last volume in his The Trilogy of Saint
Lazarus. This epic of 3,050 lines concludes his monumental work on Philippine history.

In 1999, Sunlight on Broken Stones, published by De La Salle University-Manila Press,

garnered the National Book Award given by the Manila Critics Circle and the Gintong
Aklat Award given by the Book Development Association of the Philippines
Hall of Fame of the Palanca Awards Foundation for achievements in the field of
literature, 1995. This is given to Filipino writers who have distinguished themselves by
winning at least five First Prizes in the Palanca Literary Contests.

Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature nine (9) times for poetry, fiction and
essay. His prize-winning works include: Philippine Poetics: The Past Eight Years
(essay), 1981; Crossworks (collected poems), 1979; Charts (collected poems), 1973;
The Archipelago (epic poem), 1970; Telex Moon (epic poem), 1975; The Cave and
Other Poems (collected poems), 1968; and the short stories Ritual and The Man Who
Made a Covenant with the Wind.

National Book Award given by the Manila Critics Circle five (5) times, for The
Archipelago, Sugat ng Salita, Sunlight on Broken Stones, The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus
and Tinik sa Dila.

Diwa ng Lahi, Gawad Antonio Villegas at Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan in the field
of literature by the City of Manila. This award is given to outstanding Manila artists who
have contributed to the advancement of arts and culture. 430th Araw ng Maynila, June
22, 2001, Bulwagang Villegas, Manila City Hall.

Gawad Balagtas in 1997 by the Unyon ng mga Manunulat ng Pilipinas for Bautistas
achievements as a poet, fictionist, and critic.

Included in Whos Who in the World, 1996, New Providence, New Jersey, U.S.

Makata ng Taon 1993, sponsored by the Komisyon ng mga Wikang Pilipinas with the
poem Ulat Buhat Sa Bulkan. With this and his Palanca award for Tagalog poetry and his
winning the First Prize in the Poetry contest sponsored by the Dyaryo Filipino with his
poem, Ilang Aeta Mula Sa Botolan, Bautista affirmed his importance as a bilingual
writer.

Included in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom MacArthur,
Oxford University Press, 1992.

Included in The Travellers Guide to Asian Literature, 1993.

Knight Commander of Rizal by the Order of the Knights of Rizal, December 1998, in
recognition of Bautistas literary works that helped propagate the ideas and
achievements of the national hero. His The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus has the national
hero as the main character and focal point in the authors poetic recreation of the
development of the Filipino soul from the beginning of our history to the present.

Adopted Son of Iligan City, 1997, by virtue of Executive Order #98 signed by Mayor
Alejo Yanes, for his contribution in the development of creative writing in Mindanao, for
serving as a role model among young writers, as well as his tireless promotion of Iligan
City as a center for literary arts in the Philippines. Bautista was instrumental in the
founding of the Iligan Writers Workshop and was its primary mover in attracting young
writers to congregate in Mindanao and learn the craft of writing.

Gawad Manuel L. Quezon in 1996 by the Quezon City Government in connection with
the Quezon Day Celebrations for Bautistas outstanding achievement as writer, editor
and teacher.

Certificate of appreciation from the Benigno Aquino, Jr., Foundation for his literary
works that helped perpetuate the memory of the late senator

St. Miguel Febres Cordero Research Award, SY2002-03 given by De La Salle

University-Manila, 2002. This award was given to Bautista in recognition of his
achievements in research and creative writing.

First Annual Dove Award by the College of Liberal Arts, De La Salle University-Manila,
February 14, 2001. An alumnus of the Graduate School of the University, Bautista was
honored for the contributions he had in energizing the writing life in campus through his
co-founding of the creative writing programs in the University and activities as Writer-in-
Residence for fifteen years.

Most Outstanding Achievement Award in Literature by the Philets-Artlets Centennial

Alumni Association of the University of Santo Tomas, 1996.

Most Outstanding Alumnus Award for Literature, Mapa High School Alumni Association,
1983.

Pablo Roman Prize for his Novel-in-Progress entitled Reconstruction, 1982.

Most Outstanding Alumnus Award for Literature from the Alumni Association of the
College of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, 1982.

Fernando Maria Guerrero Award for Literature, University of Santo Tomas Alumni
Association, 1980.

Most Outstanding Alumnus Award for Literature, Graduate School, Saint Louis
University, 1975.

British Council Fellowship as Visiting Writer, Trinity College, Cambridge, England, 1987.
Bautista was the first Filipino writer to be invited to attend the Cambridge Seminar on
Contemporary Literature.

Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing, University of Iowa, U.S., 1969

Visiting Professor at Waseda University, Japan and Ohio University, U.S.

2. Lazaro A. Francisco developed the social realist tradition in Philippine fiction. His
eleven novels, now acknowledged classics of Philippine literature, embodies the
authors commitment to nationalism. Amadis Ma. Guerrero wrote, Francisco
championed the cause of the common man, specifically the oppressed peasants. His
novels exposed the evils of the tenancy system, the exploitation of farmers by
unscrupulous landlords, and foreign domination. Teodoro Valencia also observed, His
pen dignifies the Filipino and accents all the positives about the Filipino way of life. His
writings have contributed much to the formation of a Filipino nationalism. Literary
historian and critic Bienvenido Lumbera also wrote, When the history of the Filipino
novel is written, Francisco is likely to occupy an eminent place in it. Already in Tagalog
literature, he ranks among the finest novelists since the beginning of the 20th century. In
addition to a deft hand at characterization, Francisco has a supple prose style
responsive to the subtlest nuances of ideas and the sternest stuff of passions.

Francisco gained prominence as a writer not only for his social conscience but also for
his masterful handling of the Tagalog language and supple prose style. With his
literary output in Tagalog, he contributed to the enrichment of the Filipino language and
literature for which he is a staunch advocate. He put up an arm to his advocacy of
Tagalog as a national language by establishing the Kapatiran ng mga Alagad ng
Wikang Pilipino (KAWIKA) in 1958.

His reputation as the Master of the Tagalog Novel is backed up by numerous awards
he received for his meritorious novels in particular, and for his contribution to Philippine
literature and culture in general. His masterpiece novelsAma, Bayang Nagpatiwakal,
Maganda Pa Ang Daigdig and Daluyongaffirm his eminent place in Philippine
literature. In 1997, he was honored by the University of the Philippines with a special
convocation, where he was cited as the foremost Filipino novelist of his generation
and champion of the Filipino writers struggle for national identity.

3.Bienvenido Lumbera is a Filipino poet, critic and dramatist. He is a National Artist of

the Philippines and a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism,
Literature and Creative Communications. He won numerous literary awards, including
the National Book Awards from the National Book Foundation, and the Carlos Palanca
Memorial Awards.

Personal life[edit]

Lumbera was born in Lipa on April 11, 1932.[1] He was barely a year old when his
father, Christian Lumbera (a Shooting Guard with a local basketball team), fell from a
fruit tree, broke his back, and died. Carmen Lumbera, his mother, suffered from cancer
and died a few years later. By the age of five he was an orphan. He and his older sister
were cared for by their paternal grandmother, Eusebia Teru.

When the war ended, Lumbera and his grandmother returned to their home in Lipa.
Eusebia, however, soon succumbed to old age and he was once again orphaned. For
his new guardians, he was asked to choose between his maiden aunts with whom his
sister had stayed or Enrique and Amanda Lumbera, his godparents. The latter had no
children of their own and Bienvenido, who was barely fourteen at the time, says he
chose them mainly because "they could send me to school."

Education[edit]

Lumbera received his Litt.B. and M.A. degrees from the University of Santo Tomas in
1950, and then his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University in 1968.

Academic[edit]

Lumbera taught Literature, Philippine Studies and Creative Writing at the Ateneo de
Manila University, De La Salle University, the University of the Philippines Diliman, and
the University of Santo Tomas. He was also appointed visiting professor of Philippine
Studies at Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Japan from 1985 to 1988 and the very
first Asian scholar-in-residence at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Martial law[edit]

After Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, Lumbera was
arrested by the Philippine military in January 1974. He was released in December of the
same year. Cynthia Nograles, his former student at the Ateneo de Manila University,
wrote to Gen. Fidel Ramos for his release. Lumbera married Cynthia a few months
later. In 1976, Lumbera began teaching at the Department of Filipino and Philippine
Literatures, U.P. College of Arts and Letters. In 1977, he served as editor of Diliman
Review upon the request of then College of Arts and Sciences Dean Francisco
Nemenzo. The publication was openly against the dictatorship but was left alone by
Marcos authorities.

Creative works[edit]

At the height of Martial Law, Lumbera had taken on other creative projects. He began
writing librettos for musical theater. Initially, the Philippine Educational Theater
Association (PETA) requested him to create a musical based on Carlos Bulosans
America Is in the Heart. Eventually, Lumbera created several highly acclaimed musical
dramas such as Tales of the Manuvu; Rama, Hari; Nasa Puso ang Amerika; Bayani;
Noli me Tangere: The Musical; and Hibik at Himagsik Nina Victoria Laktaw. Sa Sariling
Bayan: Apat na Dulang May Musika, an anthology of Lumbera's musical dramas, was
published by De La Salle University-Manila Press in 2004. Lumbera authored numerous
books, anthologies and textbooks such as: Revaluation; Pedagogy; Philippine
Literature: A History and Anthology; Rediscovery: Essays in Philippine Life and Culture;
Filipinos Writing: Philippine Literature from the Regions; and Paano Magbasa ng
Panitikang Filipino: Mga Babasahing Pangkolehiyo.

Organizational affiliations[edit]

Lumbera also established his leadership among Filipino writers, artists and critics by co-
founding cultural organizations such as the Philippine Comparative Literature
Association (1969); Pamana ng Panitikan ng Pilipinas (1970); Kalipunan para sa mga
Literatura ng Pilipinas (1975); Philippine Studies Association of the Philippines (1984)
and Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (1976). In such ways, Lumbera contributed to the
downfall of Marcos although he was in Japan during the 1986 Edsa uprising, teaching at
the Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

Lumbera is also the founding and current chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the
multi-awarded media group Kodao Productions and a member of the Concerned Artists
of the Philippines and the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.

Literary reputation[edit]
Lumbera is now widely acknowledged as one of the pillars of contemporary Philippine
literature, cultural studies and film, having written and edited numerous books on literary
history, literary criticism, and film. He also received several awards citing his
contribution to Philippine letters, most notably the 1975 Palanca Award for Literature;
the 1993 Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication
Arts; several National Book Awards from the Manila Critics Circle; the 1998 Philippine
Centennial Literary Prize for Drama; and the 1999 Cultural Center of the Philippines
Centennial Honors for the Arts. He is currently the editor of Sanghaya (National
Commission on Culture and the Arts), Professor at the Department of English in the
School of Humanities of the Ateneo de Manila University, Emeritus Professor at the
Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature, College of Arts and Letters, U.P.
Diliman, and Professor of Literature at De La Salle University. For a time, he also
served as president of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), a national
organization of more than 40,000 teachers and employees in the education sector.

The launching of Bayan at Lipunan: Ang Kritisismo ni Bienvenido Lumbera, edited by

Rosario Torres-Yu and published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House,
was celebrated by the University of the Philippines in January 2006.

Bienvenido Lumbera was proclaimed National Artist in April 2006.

Works[edit]

Poetry[edit]

Ka Bel

The Yayas Lullaby

Servant

Sadness

Magic

Eulogy of Roaches

Literary criticism[edit]

Revaluation: Essays on Literature, Cinema, and Popular Culture, 1984

Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898: Tradition and Influences on Its Development, 1986

Abot-Tanaw: Sulyap at Suri sa Nagbabagong Kultura at Lipunan, 1987

Textbooks[edit]

Pedagogy

Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology

Rediscovery: Essays in Philippine Life and Culture

Filipinos Writing: Philippine Literature from the Regions

Paano Magbasa ng Panitikang Filipino: Mga Babasahing Pangkolehiyo

Awards[edit]

National Artist, April, 2006

Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts,
1993

Pambansang Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, Unyon ng mga Manunulat ng

Pilipinas (UMPIL)

National Book Awards from the Manila Critics' Circle

Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature

Visiting Professorship, Osaka University of Foreign Studies

Professor Emeritus, University of the Philippines

Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for Drama

Cultural Center of the Philippines Centennial Honors for the Arts

1st Asian scholar-in-residence at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

4.Alejandro Reyes Roces (13 July 1924 23 May 2011) was a Filipino author, essayist,
dramatist and a National Artist of the Philippines for literature. He served as Secretary
of Education from 1961 to 1965, during the term of Philippine President Diosdado
Macapagal.
Noted for his short stories, the Manila-born Roces was married to Irene Yorston Viola
(granddaughter of Maximo Viola), with whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth Roces-
Pedrosa. Anding attended elementary and high school at the Ateneo de Manila
University, before moving to the University of Arizona and then Arizona State University
for his tertiary education. He graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts and, not long after,
attained his M.A. from Far Eastern University back in the Philippines.[1] He has since
received honorary doctorates from Tokyo University, Baguio's St. Louis University,
Polytechnic University of the Philippines, and the Ateneo de Manila University. Roces
was a captain in the Markings Guerilla during World War II and a columnist in Philippine
dailies such as the Manila Chronicle and the Manila Times. He was previously President
of the Manila Bulletin and of the CAP College Foundation.

In 2001, Roces was appointed as Chairman of the Movie and Television Review and
Classification Board (MTRCB). Roces also became a member of the Board of Trustees
of GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) and maintained a column in the
Philippine Star called Roses and Thorns.

Literary works[edit]

During his freshman year in the University of Arizona, Roces won Best Short Story for
We Filipinos are Mild Drinkers. Another of his stories, My Brothers Peculiar Chicken,
was listed as Martha Foleys Best American Stories among the most distinctive for
years 1948 and 1951. Roces did not only focus on short stories alone, as he also
published books such as Of Cocks and Kites (1959), Fiesta (1980), and Something to
Crow About (2005). Of Cocks and Kites earned him the reputation as the country's best
writer of humorous stories. It also contained the widely anthologized piece My Brothers
Peculiar Chicken. Fiesta, is a book of essays, featuring folk festivals such as Ermita's
Bota Flores, Aklan's Ati-atihan, and Naga's Peafrancia.

Something to Crow About, on the other hand, is a collection of Roces short stories. The
book has been recently brought to life by a critically acclaimed play of the same title; the
staged version of Something to Crow About is the first Filipino zarzuela in English. This
modern zarzuela tells the story of a poor cockfighter named Kiko who, to his wife's
chagrin, pays more attention to the roosters than to her. Later in the story, a conflict
ensues between Kikos brother Leandro and Golem, the son of a wealthy and powerful
man, over the affections of a beautiful woman named Luningning. The resolution? A
cockfight, of course. Something to Crow About won the Aliw Award for Best Musical and
Best Director for a Musical Production. It also had a run off-Broadway at the La Mama
Theater in New York.
Through the years, Roces has won numerous awards, including the Patnubay ng Sining
at Kalinangan Award, the Diwa ng Lahi Award, the Tanging Parangal of the Gawad
CCP Para sa Sining, and the Rizal Pro Patria Award. He was finally bestowed the honor
as National Artist of Literature on 25 June 2003.

When once asked for a piece of advice on becoming a famous literary figure Roces
said, "You cannot be a great writer; first, you have to be a good person".[2]

Socio-Cultural-Civic Affiliations[edit]

Trustee, Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)

Chairman, College Assurance Plan Foundation

Columnist, Roses and Thorns of The Philippine Star

Chairman, Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), 2001

President, Bagong Katipunan Foundation

President, UNESCO Philippine Centre of the International Theatre Institute

President, Bulletin Publishing Corporation

Secretary of Education, Republic of the Philippines, 1961

Dean of the Institute of Arts and Science, Far Eastern University

Co-Founder of the Philippine PEN

Board of Regents, University of the Philippines

Chairman, Board of Trustees, Colegio San Agustin

Chairman, Board of Regents, Pamantasan ng Lungsond ng Maynila

Chairman, Board of Regents, St. Louis University, Baguio City

Chairman, Board of Regents, St. Mary's University, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya

Chair, United Way Philippines

Chairman, UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines

President, Cultural Nationalism of the Philippines

Head, FEU Cultural Research Team

President, Philippine International Friendship Organization

President, Research Foundation in Philippine Anthropology and Archeology, Inc.

Vice President, Art Association of the Philippines

Vice President, Manila Symphony Society

President, Philippine-Italian Association

Chair, Philippine Selection Committee - Eisenhower Fellowship Inc.

Member of the Board, Academia Filipina de la Lengua Espaola

Member of the Board, Association for Philippine China Understanding

Member of the Board, National Historical Commission of the Philippines

Board of Authenticators, National Museum

Member of the Board, TOYM Foundation

Member of the Board, Casino Espaol de Manila

Member of the Board, Philippine National Bank

Member of the Board, Brent International School, Baguio

Member of the Board, Yuchengco Museum

First Chairman of the Board, PETA Theater

First Chairman of the Board, Philippine Ballet Theater

5.Virgilio S. Almario, (born March 9, 1944) better known by his pen name, RIO ALMA, is
a Filipino artist, poet, critic, translator, editor, teacher, and cultural manager.[1] He is a
National Artist of the Philippines and currently serves as the chairman of the Komisyon
sa Wikang Filipino (KWF), the government agency mandated to promote and
standardize the use of the Filipino language. On January 5, 2017, Almario was also
elected as the chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.[2]
Growing up in Bulacan among peasants, Almario sought his education at Manila and
completed his degree in A.B. Political Science at the University of the Philippines.

His life as a poet started when he took masters course in education at the University of
the East where he became associated with Rogelio G. Mangahas and Lamberto E.
Antonio.

A prolific writer, he spearheaded the second successful modernist movement in Filipino

poetry together with Rogelio Mangahas and Teo Antonio. His earliest pieces of literary
criticism were collected in Ang Makata sa Panahon ng Makina (1972), now considered
the first book of literary criticism in Filipino. Later, in the years of martial law, he set
aside modernism and formalism and took interest in nationalism, politics and activist
movement. As critic, his critical works deal with the issue of national language.

Aside from being a critic, Almario engaged in translating and editing. He has translated
the best contemporary poets of the world. He has also translated for theater production
the plays of Nick Joaquin, Bertolt Brecht, Euripides and Maxim Gorki. Other important
translations include the famous works of the Philippines' national hero, Jos Rizal,
namely Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo. For these two, he was awarded the 1999
award for translation by the Manila Critics Circle.[3][4]

Almario has been a recipient of numerous awards such as several Palanca Awards, two
grand prizes from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Makata ng Taon of the
Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, the TOYM for literature, and the Southeast Asia Write
Award of Bangkok.

He was an instructor at the Lagao Central Elementary School from 1969-1972. He only
took his M.A. in Filipino in 1974 in the University of the Philippines. In 2003, he was
appointed Dean of the College of Arts and Letters in the said university. On June 25 of
the same year, he was proclaimed National Artist for Literature.[5]

Almario is also the founder and workshop director of the Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika,
at Anyo (LIRA), an organization of poets who write in Filipino. Award-winning writers
and poets such as Roberto and Rebecca Aonuevo, Romulo Baquiran Jr., Michael
Coroza, Jerry Gracio, and Vim Nadera are but some of the products of the LIRA
workshop.

He was a founding member of the Gallan sa Arte at Tula (GAT), along with fellow poets
Teo Antonio and Mike Bigornia.

Poetry Collections

Palipad-Hangin. (1985)

Katon Para sa Limang Pandama. (1987)

Sentimental. (2004)

Estremelenggoles. (2004)

Memo Mulang Gimokudan. (2005)

Dust Devils. (2005)

Sonetos Postumos, book of poems with translation by Marne Kilates and paintings by
National Artist Ang Kiukok. (2006)

Tatlong Pasyon sa Ating Panahon, poems for children with illustrations by Mark
Justiniani, Neil Doloricon, Ferdinand Doctolero. (2006)

Buwan, Buwang, Bulawan. (2009)

6.Francisco Sionil Jos (born 3 December 1924) is one of the most widely read Filipino
writers in the English language. His novels and short stories depict the social
underpinnings of class struggles and colonialism in Filipino society.Jos's works
written in Englishhave been translated into 28 languages, including Korean,
Indonesian, Czech, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Dutch.

Jos was born in Rosales, Pangasinan, the setting of many of his stories. He spent his
childhood in Barrio Cabugawan, Rosales, where he first began to write. Jos is of
Ilocano descent whose family had migrated to Pangasinan prior to his birth. Fleeing
poverty, his forefathers traveled from Ilocos towards Cagayan Valley through the Santa
Fe Trail. Like many migrant families, they brought their lifetime possessions with them,
including uprooted molave posts of their old houses and their alsong, a stone mortar for
pounding rice.[1][2][3][4]

One of the greatest influences to Jos was his industrious mother who went out of her
way to get him the books he loved to read, while making sure her family did not go
hungry despite poverty and landlessness. Jos started writing in grade school, at the
time he started reading. In the fifth grade, one of Joss teachers opened the school
library to her students, which is how Jos managed to read the novels of Jos Rizal,
Willa Cathers My Antonia, Faulkner and Steinbeck. Reading about Basilio and Crispin
in Rizals Noli Me Tangere made the young Jos cry, because injustice was not an alien
thing to him. When Jos was five years old, his grandfather who was a soldier during
the Philippine revolution, had once tearfully showed him the land their family had once
tilled but was taken away by rich mestizo landlords who knew how to work the system
against illiterates like his grandfather.

Writing career[edit]

Jos attended the University of Santo Tomas after World War II, but dropped out and
plunged into writing and journalism in Manila. In subsequent years, he edited various
literary and journalistic publications, started a publishing house, and founded the
Philippine branch of PEN, an international organization for writers.[1][2] Jos received
numerous awards for his work. The Pretenders is his most popular novel, which is the
story of one man's alienation from his poor background and the decadence of his wife's
wealthy family.[3][4]

Jos Rizal's life and writings profoundly influenced Jos's work. The five volume
Rosales Saga, in particular, employs and interrogates themes and characters from
Rizal's work.[7] Throughout his career, Jos's writings espouse social justice and
change to better the lives of average Filipino families. He is one of the most critically
acclaimed Filipino authors internationally, although much underrated in his own country
because of his authentic Filipino English and his anti-elite views.

"Authors like myself choose the city as a setting for their fiction because the city itself
illustrates the progress or the sophistication that a particular country has achieved. Or,
on the other hand, it might also reflect the kind of decay, both social and perhaps moral,
that has come upon a particular people."
F. Sionil Jos, BBC.com, 30 July 2003[1]

Sionil Jos also owns Solidaridad Bookshop, which is on Padre Faura Street in Ermita,
Manila. The bookshop offers mostly hard-to-find books and Filipiniana reading
materials. It is said to be one of the favorite haunts of many local writers.

In his regular column, Hindsight, in The Philippine STAR, dated 12 September 2011, he
wrote "Why we are shallow", blaming the decline of Filipino intellectual and cultural
standards on a variety of modern amenities, including media, the education system
particularly the loss of emphasis on classic literature and the study of Greek and Latin
and the abundance and immediacy of information on the Internet.

Awards

Five of Jos's works have won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature: his
short stories The God Stealer in 1959, Waywaya in 1979, Arbol de Fuego (Firetree) in
1980, his novel Mass in 1981, and his essay A Scenario for Philippine Resistance in
1979.[9]

Since the 1980s, various award-giving bodies have feted Jos with awards for his
outstanding works and for being an outstanding Filipino in the field of literature. His first
award was the 1979 City of Manila Award for Literature which was presented to him by
Manila Mayor Ramon Bagatsing. The following year, he was given the prestigious
Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.
Among his other awards during that period include the Outstanding Fulbrighters Award
for Literature (1988) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Award (Gawad para sa
Sining) for Literature (1989).

By the turn of the century, Jos continued to receive recognition from several award-
giving bodies. These include the Cultural Center of the Philippines Centennial Award in
1999, the prestigious Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 2000, and the Order
of Sacred Treasure (Kun Santo Zuiho Sho) in 2001. In that same year, the Philippine
government bestowed upon him the prestigious title of National Artist for Literature for
his outstanding contributions to Philippine literature.[10] In 2004, Jos was garnered the
coveted Pablo Neruda Centennial Award in Chile.
Works

Rosales Saga novels

A five-novel series that spans three centuries of Philippine history, translated into 22
languages

Po-on (Source) (1984) ISBN 971-8845-10-0

The Pretenders (1962) ISBN 971-8845-00-3

My Brother, My Executioner (1973) ISBN 971-8845-16-X

Mass (December 31, 1974) ISBN 0-86861-572-2

Tree (1978) ISBN 971-8845-14-3

Original novels containing the Rosales Saga[edit]

Source (Po-on) (1993) ISBN 0-375-75144-0

Don Vicente (1980) ISBN 0-375-75243-9 Tree and My Brother, My Executioner

combined in one book

The Samsons ISBN 0-375-75244-7 The Pretenders and Mass combined in one book

Other novels[edit]

Gagamba (The Spider Man) (1991) ISBN 978-971-536-105-7

Viajero (1993) ISBN 978-971-8845-04-2

Sin (1994) ISBN 0-517-28446-4

Ben Singkol (2001) ISBN 971-8845-32-1

Ermita (1988) ISBN 971-8845-12-7

Vibora! (2007)

Sherds (2008)

Muse and Balikbayan: Two Plays (2008)

Short Stories (with Introduction and Teaching Guide by Thelma B. Kintanar) (2008)
The Feet of Juan Bacnang (2011)

Novellas[edit]

Three Filipino Women (1992) ISBN 9780307830289

Two Filipino Women (1981) ISBN 9711001136

Short story collections[edit]

The God Stealer and Other Stories (2001) ISBN 971-8845-35-6

Puppy Love and Thirteen Short Stories (March 15, 1998) ISBN 971-8845-26-7 and
ISBN 978-971-8845-26-4

Olvidon and Other Stories (1988) ISBN 971-8845-18-6

Platinum: Ten Filipino Stories (1983) ISBN 971-8845-22-4 (now out of print, its stories
are added to the new version of Olvidon and Other Stories)

Waywaya: Eleven Filipino Short Stories (1980) ISBN 99922-884-0-X

Asian PEN Anthology (as editor) (1966)

Short Story International (SSI): Tales by the World's Great Contemporary Writers
(Unabridged, Volume 13, Number 75) (co-author, 1989) ISBN 1-55573-042-6

Children's books[edit]

The Molave and The Orchid (November 2004)

Verses[edit]

Questions (1988)

Essays and non-fiction[edit]

In Search of the Word (De La Salle University Press, March 15, 1998) ISBN 971-555-
264-1 and ISBN 978-971-555-264-6

We Filipinos: Our Moral Malaise, Our Heroic Heritage

Soba, Senbei and Shibuya: A Memoir of Post-War Japan ISBN 971-8845-31-3 and
ISBN 978-971-8845-31-8

Heroes in the Attic, Termites in the Sala: Why We are Poor (2005)

This I Believe: Gleanings from a Life in Literature (2006)

Literature and Liberation (co-author) (1988)

In translation[edit]

Zajatec bludnho kruhu (The Pretenders) (Czech language, Svoboda, 1981)

Po-on (Tagalog language, De La Salle University Press, 1998) ISBN 971-555-267-6

and ISBN 978-971-555-267-7

Anochecer (Littera) (Spanish language, Maeva, October 2003) ISBN 84-95354-95-0

and ISBN 978-84-95354-95-2

In anthologies[edit]

Tong (a short story from Brown River, White Ocean: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century
Philippine Literature in English by Luis Francia, Rutgers University Press, August 1993)
ISBN 0-8135-1999-3 and ISBN 978-0-8135-1999-9

In film documentaries[edit]

Francisco Sionil Jos A Filipino Odyssey by Art Makosinski (Documentary, in color,

28min, 16mm. Winner of the Golden Shortie for Best Documentary at the 1996 Victoria
Film and Video Festival)[11]

Books about F. Sionil Jos[edit]

Frankie Sionil Jos: A Tribute by Edwin Thuboo (editor) (Times Academic Press,
Singapore, January 2005) ISBN 981-210-425-9 and ISBN 978-981-210-425-0

Conversations with F. Sionil Jos by Miguel A. Bernard (editor) (Vera-Reyes Publishing

Inc., Philippines, 304 pages, 1991

The Ilocos: A Philippine Discovery by James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly magazine,
Volume 267, No. 5, May 1991

F. Sionil Jos and His Fiction by Alfredo T. Morales (Vera-Reyes Publishing Inc.,
Philippines, 129 pages)

Die Rosales Saga von Francisco Sionil Jos. Postkoloniale Diskurse in der Romanfolge
eines Philippinischen Autors by Hergen Albus (SEACOM Edition, Berlin, 2009)

Post-colonial Discourses in Francisco Sionil Jos's Rosales Saga: Post-colonial Theory

vs. Philippine Reality in the Works of a Philippine Autor by Hergen Albus
(Sdwestdeutscher Verlag fr Hochschulschriften, 14. November 2012)
7.Edith L. Tiempo (April 22, 1919 August 21, 2011),[1] poet, fiction writer, teacher and
literary critic was a Filipino writer in the English language.

Tiempo was born in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. Her poems are intricate verbal
transfigurations of significant experiences as revealed, in two of her much anthologized
pieces, "Lament for the Littlest Fellow" and "Bonsai." As fictionist, Tiempo is as morally
profound. Her language has been marked as "descriptive but unburdened by scrupulous
detailing." She is an influential tradition in Philippine Literature in English. Together with
her late husband, writer and critic Edilberto K. Tiempo, they founded (in 1962) and
directed the Silliman National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City, which has
produced some of the Philippines' best writers. She was conferred the National Artist
Award for Literature in 1999.

Novels

A Blade of Fern (1978)

His Native Coast (1979)

The Alien Corn (1992)

One, Tilting Leaves (1995)

The Builder (2004)

The Jumong (2006)

Short stories

Abide, Joshua, and Other Stories (1964)

The Corral

Poetry

The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems (1966)

The Charmer's Box and Other Poet (1993)

Marginal Annotations and Other Poems

Inside

Honors and awards

National Artist Award for Literature (1999)

Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature

Cultural Center of the Philippines (1979, First Prize in Novel)

Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (1988)

8.Nstor Vicente Madali Gonzlez (September 8, 1915 November 28, 1999) was a
Filipino novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet. Conferred as the National Artist of
the Philippines for Literature in 1997.

He was born on 8 September 1915 in Romblon, Philippines.[1] Gonzlez, however, was

raised in Mansalay, a southern town of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro.
Gonzlez was a son of a school supervisor and a teacher. As a teenager, he helped his
father by delivering meat door-to-door across provincial villages and municipalities.
Gonzlez was also a musician. He played the violin and even made four guitars by
hand. He earned his first peso by playing the violin during a Chinese funeral in
Romblon. Gonzlez attended Mindoro High School (now Jose J. Leido Jr. Memorial
National High School) from 1927 to 1930. Gonzlez attended college at National
University (Manila) but he was unable to finish his undergraduate degree. While in
Manila, Gonzlez wrote for the Philippine Graphic and later edited for the Evening News
Magazine and Manila Chronicle. His first published essay appeared in the Philippine
Graphic and his first poem in Poetry in 1934. Gonzlez made his mark in the Philippine
writing community as a member of the Board of Advisers of Likhaan: the University of
the Philippines Creative Writing Center, founding editor of The Diliman Review and as
the first president of the Philippine Writers' Association. Gonzlez attended creative
writing classes under Wallace Stegner and Katherine Anne Porter at Stanford
University. In 1950, Gonzlez returned to the Philippines and taught at the University of
Santo Tomas, the Philippine Women's University and the University of the Philippines
(U.P.). At U.P., Gonzlez was only one of two faculty members accepted to teach in the
university without holding a degree. On the basis of his literary publications and
distinctions, Gonzlez later taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
California State University, Hayward, the University of Washington, the University of
California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Gonzalez is buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

On 14 April 1987, the University of the Philippines conferred on N.V.M. Gonzlez the
degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, "For his creative genius in shaping
the Philippine short story and novel, and making a new clearing within the English idiom
and tradition on which he established an authentic vocabulary, ...For his insightful
criticism by which he advanced the literary tradition of the Filipino and enriched the
vocation for all writers of the present generation...For his visions and auguries by which
he gave the Filipino sense and sensibility a profound and unmistakable script read and
reread throughout the international community of letters..."

N.V.M. Gonzlez was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines in 1997. He died on
28 November 1999 in Philippines at the age of 84. As a National Artist, Gonzalez was
honored with a state funeral at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Works[edit]

Gonzalez on a 2015 stamp of the Philippines

The works of Gonzalez have been published in Filipino, English, Chinese, German,
Russian and Indonesian.

Novels[edit]

The Winds of April (1941)

A Season of Grace (1956)

The Bamboo Dancers (1988)

The Land And The Rain

The Happiest Boy in The World

Short fiction[edit]

"The Tomato Game".1992

A Grammar of Dreams and Other Stories. University of the Philippines Press, 1997
The Bread of Salt and Other Stories. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993;
University of the Philippines Press, 1993

Mindoro and Beyond: Twenty-one Stories. Quezon City: University of the Philippines
Press, 1981; New Day, 1989

Selected Stories. Denver, Colorado: Alan Swallow, 1964

Look, Stranger, on this Island Now. Manila: Benipayo, 1963

Children of the Ash-Covered Loam and Other Stories. Manila: Benipayo, 1954;
Bookmark Filipino Literary Classic, 1992

Seven Hills Away. Denver, Colorado: Alan Swallow, 1947

Essays[edit]

A Novel of Justice: Selected Essays 19681994. Manila: National Commission for

Culture and the Arts and Anvil (popular edition), 1996

Work on the Mountain (Includes The Father and the Maid, Essays on Filipino Life and
Letters and Kalutang: A Filipino in the World), University of the Philippines Press, 1996

Awards and prizes[edit]

Regents Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, 19981999

Philippines Centennial Award for Literature, 1998

National Artist Award for Literature, 1997

Oriental Mindoro Sangguniang Panlalawigan Resolution "extending due recognition to

Nestor V. M. Gonzlez... the commendation he well deserves..." 1996

City of Manila Diwa ng Lahi award "for his service and contribution to Philippine national
Literature," 1996

City of Los Angeles resolution declaring October 11, 1996 "N.V.M. Gonzlez Day, 1996

The Asian Catholic Publishers Award, 1993

The Filipino Community of California Proclamation "honoring N.V.M. Gonzlez for

seventy-eight years of achievements," 1993

Ninoy Aquino Movement for Social and Economic Reconstruction through Volunteer
Service award, 1991
City and County of San Francisco proclamation of March 7, 1990 "Professor N.V.M.
Gonzlez Day in San Francisco," 1990

Cultural Center of the Philippines award, Gawad Para sa Sining, 1990

Writers Union of the Philippines award, Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagts, 1989

University of the Philippines International Writer-in-Residence, 1988

Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris Causa) from the University of the Philippines, 1987

Djerassi Foundation Artist-in-Residence, 1986

Philippine Foreign Service Certificate of Appreciation for Work in the International

Academic and Literary Community, at San Francisco, 1983

Emeritus Professor of English, California State University, 1982

Carlos Palanca Memorial Award (Short Story), First Prize for 'The Tomato Game,' 1971

City of Manila Medal of Honor, 1971.

Awarded Leverhulme Fellowship, University of Hong Kong, 1969.

Visiting Associate Professorship in English, University of California, Santa Barbara,

1968.

British Council award for Travel to England, 1965.

Intemaciones Award for Travel in the Federal German Republic, 1965.

Philippines Free Press First Prize Award winner for Serenade (short story), 1964.

Rockefeller Foundation Writing Grant and Travel in Europe, 1964

Jose Rizal Pro-Patria Award for The Bamboo Dancers, 1961

Republic Cultural Heritage Award for The Bamboo Dancers, 1960

Carlos Palanca Memorial Award (Short Story), Third Prize winner for On the Ferry, 1959

Philippine Free Press Third Prize winner for On the Ferry, 1959

Republic Award of Merit for "the advancement of Filipino culture in the field of English
Literature," 1954.

Carlos Palanca Memorial Award (Short Story), Second Prize winner for Lupo and the
River, 1953
Rockefeller Foundation Study and Travel fellowship to India and the Far East, 1952

Carlos Palanca Memorial Award (Short Story), Second Prize winner for Children of the
Ash-covered Loam, 1952

Rockefeller Foundation Writing Fellowship to Stanford University, Kenyon College

School of English, and Columbia University, 19491950

Liwayway Short Story Contest, Third Prize winner for Lunsod, Nayon at Dagat-dagatan,
1943

First Commonwealth Literary Contest honorable mention for The Winds of April, 1940.

9.Francisco "Franz" Arcellana (September 6, 1916 August 1, 2002) was a Filipino

writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist and teacher. He was born on September 6, 1916.
Arcellana already had ambitions of becoming a writer during his years in the
elementary. His actual writing, however, started when he became a member of The
Torres Torch Organization during his high school years. Arcellana Grande continued
writing in various school papers at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He later on
received a Rocketfeller Granted and became a follower in creative writing the University
of Iowa and Breadloaf's writers conference from 1956 1957.

He is considered an important progenitor of the modern Filipino short story in English.

Arcellana pioneered the development of the short story as a lyrical prose-poetic form
within Filipino literature. His works are now often taught in tertiary-level-syllabi in the
Philippines. Many of his works were translated into Tagalog, Malaysian, Russian,
Italian, and German. Arcellana won 2nd place in 1951 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature, with his short story, "The Flowers of May." 14 of his short stories
were also included in Jose Garcia Villa's Honor Roll from 1928 to 1939. His major
achievements included the first award in art criticism from the Art Association of the
Philippines in 1954, the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan award from the city
government of Manila in 1981, and the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for
English fiction from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipino (UMPIL) in 1988.

On April 2, 1989, the University of the Philippines conferred upon Arcellana a doctorate
in humane letters, honoris causa. Francisco Arcellana was proclaimed National Artist of
the Philippines in Literature on 23, 1990 by then Philippine President Corazon C.
Aquino.
In 2009, or seven years after his death, his family came out with a book to pay tribute to
National Artist for Literature Arcellana. The book entitled, "Franz," is a collection of
essays gathered by the Arcellana family from colleagues, friends, students and family
members, including fellow National Artist Nick Joaquin, Butch Dalisay, Recah Trinidad,
Jing Hidalgo, Gemino Abad, Romina Gonzalez, Edwin Cordevilla, Divina Aromin,
Doreen Yu, Danton Remoto, Jose Esteban Arcellana and others.

Arcellana is buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Arcellana died in 2002. As a National Artist, he received a state funeral at the Libingan
ng mga Bayani.

His grandson Liam Hertzsprung performed a piano concert in 2006 dedicated to him.

Arcellana's published books include:

Selected Stories (1962)

Poetry and Politics: The State of Original Writing in English in the Philippines Today
(1977)

The Francisco Arcellana Sampler (1990).

10. Carlos Pea Romulo, QSC PLH (14 January 1898 15 December 1985) was a
Filipino diplomat, statesman, soldier, journalist and author. He was a reporter at 16, a
newspaper editor by the age of 20, and a publisher at 32. He was a co-founder of the
Boy Scouts of the Philippines, a general in the US Army and the Philippine Army,
university president, President of the UN General Assembly, was eventually named one
of the Philippines' National Artists in Literature, and was the recipient of many other
honors and honorary degrees. His hometown is Camiling, Tarlac and he studied at the
Camiling Central Elementary School during his basic education.
Diplomatic career[edit]

Romulo served eight Philippine presidents, from Manuel L. Quezon to Ferdinand

Marcos, as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines and as the countrys
representative to the United States and to the United Nations. He also served as the
Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives during the
Commonwealth era. In addition, he served also as the Secretary of Education in
President Diosdado P. Macapagals and President Ferdinand E. Marcoss Cabinet
through 1962 to 1968.[1][2]

Resident Commissioner[edit]

Romulo served as Resident Commissioner of the Philippines to the United States

Congress from 1944 to 1946. This was the title of the non-voting Delegate to the US
House of Representatives for lands taken in the SpanishAmerican War, and as such,
he is the only member of the US Congress to end his tenure via a legal secession from
the Union.

United Nations[edit]

In his career in the United Nations, Romulo was a strong advocate of human rights,
freedom and decolonization. In 1948 in Paris, France, at the third UN General
Assembly, he strongly disagreed with a proposal made by the Soviet delegation headed
by Andrei Vishinsky, who challenged his credentials by insulting him with this quote:
"You are just a little man from a little country." In return, Romulo replied, "It is the duty of
the little Davids of this world to fling the pebbles of truth in the eyes of the blustering
Goliaths and force them to behave!", leaving Vishinsky with nothing left to do but sit
down.[3]

President of the UN General Assembly[edit]

He served as the President of the Fourth Session of United Nations General Assembly
from 1949 to 1950the first Asian to hold the positionand served as president of the
United Nations Security Council four times, in 1981, in 1980 and twice in 1957.[4] He
had served with General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific, and became the first non-
American to win the Pulitzer Prize in Correspondence in 1942. The Pulitzer Prize
website says Carlos P. Romulo of Philippine Herald was awarded "For his observations
and forecasts of Far Eastern developments during a tour of the trouble centers from
Hong Kong to Batavia." He was a candidate for the position of United Nations
Secretary-General in 1953, but did not win.

Ambassador to the United States[edit]

From Jan 1952 to May 1953, Romulo became only the second former member of
Congress to become the Ambassador to the United States from a foreign country,
following Joaquin M. Elizalde, who had been his immediate predecessor in both posts.
He later served as Ambassador again from Sept 1955 to Feb 1962.[5]

Philippine Presidential Aspiration[edit]

Instead, he returned to the Philippines and was a candidate for the nomination as the
presidential candidate for the Liberal Party, but lost at the party convention to the
incumbent Elpidio Quirino, who ran unsuccessfully for re-election against Ramon
Magsaysay. Quirino had agreed to a secret ballot at the convention, but after the
convention opened, the president demanded an open roll-call voting, leaving the
delegates no choice but supporting Quirino, the candidate of the party machine. Feeling
betrayed, Romulo left the Liberal Party and became national campaign manager of
Magsaysay, the candidate of the opposing Nacionalista Party who won the election.

Romulo, portrait by Soshana, oil on canvas, 1945

Ang Paglulunsad Memorial, Lingayen, Pangasinan (Carlos P. Romulo launched on

January 10, 1945 Philippine and Pacific troops to liberate Luzon

Minister of Foreign Affairs[edit]

He was the signatory for the Philippines to the United Nations Charter when it was
founded in 1945. He was the Philippines' Secretary (Minister from 1973 to 1984) of
Foreign Affairs under President Elpidio Quirino from 1950 to 1952, under President
Diosdado Macapagal from 1963 to 1964 and under President Ferdinand Marcos from
1968 to 1984. In April 1955 he led the Philippines' delegation to the Asian-African
Conference at Bandung.
Romulo, in all, wrote and published 22 books, which includes The United (novel), I
Walked with Heroes (autobiography), I Saw the Fall of the Philippines, Mother America
and I See the Philippines Rise (war-time memoirs).

Death[edit]

He died, at 87, in Manila on 15 December 1985 and was buried in the Heroes
Cemetery (Libingan ng mga Bayani). He was honored as "one of the truly great
statesmen of the 20th century."[citation needed][6] In 1980, he was extolled by United
Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim as "Mr. United Nations" for his valuable
services to the United Nations and his dedication to freedom and world peace.

Awards and Recognitions[edit]

Gen. Romulo (3d from R), as President of the United Nations General Assembly, talks
with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

Carlos P. Romulo statue UN Avenue.

Romulo is perhaps among the most decorated Filipino in history, which includes 72
honorary degrees from different international institutions and universities and 144
awards and decorations from foreign countries:

Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1952 "For his contribution in international cooperation,
in particular on questions on undeveloped areas, and as president for UN's 4th General
Assembly"[7]

Quezon Service Cross, April 17, 1951

Philippine National Artist in Literature, 1982

United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, January 12, 1984

Boy Scouts of America Silver Buffalo Award

Distinguished Service Star of the Philippines

Philippine Gold Cross

Distinguished Silver Star

Purple Heart

Presidential Unit Citation with Two Oak Leaf Clusters

Philippine Legion of Honor (Commander)

US Legion of Merit (Commander)

Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix from the Greek Government

Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos Manuel do Cespedes from the Republic of Cuba

Pulitzer Prize in Correspondence, 1942

World Government News First Annual Gold Nadal Award (for work in the United Nations
for peace and world government), March 1947

Princeton University - Woodrow Wilson Memorial Foundation Gold Medal award ("in
recognition of his contribution to public life"), May 1947

International Benjamin Franklin Society's Gold Medal (for distinguished world

statesmanship in 1947), January 1948

Freeman of the City of Plymouth, England, October 1948

United Nations Peace Medal

World Peace Award

Four Freedoms Peace Award

Philippine Presidential Medal of Merit, July 3, 1949

Hero of the Republic Award, 1984

Notre Dame University, Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), 1935

Georgetown University, Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), 1960

Harvard University, Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), 1950

Anecdotes from Beth Romulo through Reader's Digest (June 1989)[edit]

At the third UN General Assembly, held in Paris in 1948, the USSRs deputy foreign
minister, Andrei Vishinsky, sneered at Romulo and challenged his credentials: You are
just a little man from a little country. It is the duty of the little Davids of this world, cried
Romulo, to fling the pebbles of truth in the eyes of the blustering Goliaths and force
them to behave!

During his meeting with Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito welcomed Gen.
Romulo with drinks and cigars, to which the general kindly refused. Their conversation
went as follows:

Tito: "Do you drink?"

Romulo: "No, I don't."

Tito: "Do you smoke?"

Romulo: "No, thank you."

Tito: "What do you do then?"

Romulo: "I etcetera."

At this, Marshal Tito was tickled by his reply and loudly exclaimed around the room, "I
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!"

Romulo was a dapper little man (barely five feet four inches in shoes). When they
waded in at Leyte beach in October 1944, and the word went out that General
MacArthur was waist deep, one of Romulo's journalist friends cabled, If MacArthur was
in water waist deep, Romulo must have drowned!
In later years, Romulo told another story himself about a meeting with MacArthur and
other tall American generals who disparaged his physical stature. "Gentlemen," he
declared, "When you say something like that, you make me feel like a dime among
nickels."

Books

Carlos P. Romulo at the Clark Air Base (1979)

I Saw the Fall of The Philippines

Mother America

My Brother Americans

I See The Philippines Rise

The United

Crusade in Asia (The John Day Company, 1955; about the 1953 presidential election
campaign of Ramon Magsaysay)

The Meaning of Bandung

The Magsaysay Story (with Marvin M. Gray, The John Day Company 1956, updated re-
edition by Pocket Books, Special Student Edition, SP-18, December 1957; biography of
Ramon Magsaysay, Pocket Books edition updated with an additional chapter on
Magsaysay's death)

I Walked with Heroes (autobiography)

Last Man off Bataan (Romulo's experience during the Japanese Plane bombings.)

Romulo: A Third World Soldier at the UN

Daughters for Sale and Other Plays

11. Jose Garcia Villa (August 5, 1914 February 7, 1997) was a Filipino poet, literary
critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the National Artist of the
Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative
writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the "reversed consonance
rhyme scheme" in writing poetry, as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks
especially commas, which made him known as the Comma Poet. He used the penname
Doveglion (derived from "Dove, Eagle, Lion"), based on the characters he derived from
himself. These animals were also explored by another poet E. E. Cummings in
Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa.

Villa was born on August 5, 1908, in Manila's Singalong district. His parents were
Simen Villa (a personal physician of Emilio Aguinaldo, the founding President of the
First Philippine Republic) and Guia Garcia (a wealthy landowner).[citation needed]

He graduated from the University of the Philippines Integrated School and the University
of the Philippines High School in 1925. Villa enrolled on a Pre-Medical course in the
University of the Philippines, but then switched to Pre-Law course. However, he realized
that his true passion was in the arts. Villa ,the corresponding rhyme. Thus, a rhyme for
near would be run; or rain, green, reign."

Villa's tart poetic style was considered too aggressive at that time. In 1929 he published
Man Songs, a series of erotic poems, which the administrators in UP found too bold and
was even fined Philippine peso for obscenity by the Manila Court of First Instance. In
that same year, Villa won Best Story of the Year from Philippine Free Press magazine
for Mir-I-Nisa. He also received P1,000 prize money, which he used to migrate to the
United States.

He enrolled at the University of New Mexico, wherein he was one of the founders of
Clay, a mimeograph literary magazine. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree,
and pursued post-graduate work at Columbia University. Villa had gradually caught the
attention of the country's literary circles, one of the few Asians to do so at that time.

After the publication of Footnote to Youth in 1933, Villa switched from writing prose to
poetry, and published only a handful of works until 1942. During the release of Have
Come, Am Here in 1942, he introduced a new rhyming scheme called "reversed
consonance" wherein, according to Villa: "The last sounded consonants of the last
syllable, or the last principal consonant of a word, are reversed for the corresponding
rhyme. Thus, a rhyme for near would be run; or rain, green, reign."

In 1949, Villa presented a poetic style he called "comma poems", wherein commas are
placed after every word. In the preface of Volume Two, he wrote: "The commas are an
integral and essential part of the medium: regulating the poem's verbal density and time
movement: enabling each word to attain a fuller tonal value, and the line movement to
become more measured."

Villa worked as an associate editor for New Directions Publishing in New York City from
194951, and then became director of poetry workshop at City College of New York
from 1952 to 1960. He then left the literary scene and concentrated on teaching, first
lecturing in The New School|The New School for Social Research from 1964 to 1973,
as well as conducting poetry workshops in his apartment. Villa was also a cultural
attach to the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 1952 to 1963, and an
adviser on cultural affairs to the President of the Philippines beginning 1968.

On February 5, 1997, at the age of 88, Jose was found in a coma in his New York
apartment and was rushed to St. Vincent Hospital in the Greenwich Village area. His
death two days later, February 7, was attributed to "cerebral stroke and multilobar
pneumonia". He was buried on February 10 in St. John's Cemetery in New York,
wearing a Barong Tagalog.

New York Centennial Celebration

On August 5 and 6, 2008, Villa's centennial celebration began with poem reading at the
Jefferson Market Library. For the launch of Doveglion: Collected Poems, Penguin
Classics reissue of Villa's poems edited by John Edwin Cowen, there were readings of
his poems by Cowen, by book introducer Luis H. Francia, and by scholar Tina Chang.[4]
Then, the Leonard Lopate Show will interview Cowen and Francia on the "Pope of
Greenwich Village's" life and work, followed by the Asia Pacific Forum show.

Personal

In 1946 Villa married Rosemarie Lamb, with whom he had two sons, Randall and
Lance. They annulled ten years later. He also had three grandchildren, Jordan Villa,
Sara Villa Stokes and Travis Villa. Villa was especially close to his nieces, Ruby
Precilla, Milagros Villanueva, Maria Luisa Cohen and Maria Villanueva.

Works

As an editor, Villa first published Philippine Short Stories: Best 25 Short Stories of 1928
in 1929, an anthology of Filipino short stories written in English literature English that
were mostly published in the literary magazine Philippine Free Press for that year. It is
the second anthology to have been published in the Philippines, after Philippine Love
Stories by editor Paz Mrquez-Bentez in 1927. His first collection of short stories that
he had written were published under the title Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines
and Others in 1933; while in 1939, Villa published Many Voices, his first collection
poems, followed by Poems by Doveglion in 1941. Other collections of poems include
Have Come, Am Here (1942) and Volume Two (1949; the year he edited The Doveglion
Book of Philippine Poetry in English from 1910). Three years later, he released a follow-
up for The Portable Villa entitled The Essential Villa. Villa, however, went under "self-
exile" after the 1960s, even though he was nominated for several major literary awards
including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This was perhaps because of oppositions
between his formalism (literature) formalist style and the advocates of proletarian
literature, who misjudged him as a petty bourgeois. Villa only "resurfaced" in 1993 with
an anthology entitled Charlie Chan Is Dead, which was edited by Jessica Hagedorn.

Several reprints of Villa's past works were done, including Appasionata: Poems in
Praise of Love in 1979, A Parliament of Giraffes (a collection of Villa's poems for young
readers, with Tagalog language Tagalog translation provided by Larry Francia), and The
Anchored Angel: Selected Writings by Villa that was edited by Eileen Tabios with a
foreword provided by Hagedorn (both in 1999).

His popular poems include When I Was No Bigger Than A Huge, an example of his
"comma poems", and The Emperor's New Sonnet (a part of Have Come, Am Here)
which is basically a blank sheet of paper.

Writing style

Villa described his use of commas after every word as similar to "Seurat's architectonic
and measured pointillismwhere the points of color are themselves the medium as well
as the technique of statement". This unusual style forces the reader to pause after every
word, slowing the pace of the poem and resulting in what Villa calls "a lineal pace of
dignity and movement". An example of Villa's "comma poems" can be found in an
excerpt of his work #114:

In, my, undream, of, death,

I, unspoke, the, Word.

Since, nobody, had, dared,

With, my, own, breath,

I, broke, the, cord!

Villa also created verses out of already-published proses and forming what he liked to
call "Collages". This excerpt from his poem #205 was adapted from Letters of Rainer
Maria Rilke, volume 1:

And then suddenly,

A life on which one could

Stand. Now it carried one and

Was conscious of one while it

Carried. A stillness in which

Reality and miracle

Had become identical -

Stillness of that greatest

Stillness. Like a plant that is to

Become a tree, so was I

Taken out of the little container,

Carefully, while earth

While Villa agreed with William Carlos Williams that "prose can be a laboratory for
metrics", he tried to make the adapted words his own. His opinion on what makes a
good poetry was in contrast to the progressive style of Walt Whitman, concerning which
he said: "Poetry should evoke an emotional response. The poet has a breathlessness in
him that he converts into a breathlessness of words, which in turn becomes the
breathlessness of the reader. This is the sign of a true poet. All other verse, without this
appeal, is just verse."

He also advised his students who aspire to become poets not to read any form of
fiction, lest their poems become "contaminated by narrative elements", insisting that real
poetry is "written with words, not ideas".

Critical reception

Villa was considered as a powerful literary influence in the Philippines throughout much
of the 20th century, although he had lived most of his life in the United States. His
writing style, as well as his personality and staunch opinions on writing, has often made
him considered as an eccentric.[5] Francia explained in Asiaweek magazine, "In a world
of English-language poetry dominated by British and Americans, Villa stood out for the
ascetic brilliance of his poetry and for his national origin." Fellow Filipino writer Salvador
P. Lpez described Villa as "the one Filipino writer today who it would be futile to deride
and impossible to ignore ... the pace-setter for an entire generation of young writers, the
mentor laying down the law for the whole tribe, the patron-saint of a cult of rebellious
moderns."[6] However, Villa was accused of having little faith in Filipinos' ability to write
creatively in English, saying that "poetry in English has no prospects whatsoever in the
Philippinesi.e., ... that it cannot be written by Filipino writers. An exception or two may
arise after a long period of time, but these writers will remain exceptions. The reason
why Filipino writers are at a disadvantage in the writing of English poetryis that they
have no oneness with the English language."

In a review to Footnote to Youth, The New York Times wrote, "For at least two years the
name of Jose Garcia Villa has been familiar to the devotees of the experimental short
story... They knew, too, that he was an extremely youthful Filipino who had somehow
acquired the ability to write a remarkable English prose and who had come to America
as a student in the summer of 1930." This comment brought out two opposing
impressions of him as a literary genius, and merely as a writer of English as a second
language.
During the United States' Formalist period in literature, American writers admired Villa's
work. Mark Van Doren wrote in reaction to Selected Poems and New that it is "...So
natural yet in its daring so weird, a poet rich and surprising, and not to be ignored".
Babette Deutsch wrote in The New Republic that Have Come, Am Here reveals that
Villa's concern for "ultimate things, the self and the universe. He is also on visiting terms
with the world. He is more interested in himself than in the universe, and he greets the
world with but a decent urbanity." Although she viewed Villa's range as somewhat
narrow, he "soars high and plunges deep". British poet Edith Sitwell revealed in the
preface of Villa's Selected Poems and New that she experienced "a shock" upon
reading Have Come, Am Here, most notably the poem "#57", "a strange poem of
ineffable beauty, springing straight from the depths of Being. I hold that this is one of the
most wonderful short poems of our time, and reading it I knew that I was seeing for the
first time the work of a poet with a great, even an astonishing, and perfectly original gift."
Meanwhile, noted American poet Garret Hongo described Villa as "one of the greatest
pioneers of Asian American literature...our bitter, narcissistic angel of both late
Modernism and early post-colonialism." In his introduction to Footnote to Youth,
American writer Edward J. O'Brienwho dedicated his collection Best American Short
Stories of 1932 to Villahailed the poet as "one of a half-dozen American short-story
writers who count". Meanwhile, in reaction to Villa's poems, e.e. cummings wrote, "and i
am alive to see a man against the sky".

Critics were divided about Villa's "comma poems". On one side, they were irritated by
them, calling them "gimmicky". Leonard Casper wrote in New Writings from the
Philippines that the technique of putting commas after every word "is as demonstrably
malfunctional as a dragging foot". Ten years later, Casper continued to criticize Villa
because he "still uses the 'commas' with inadequate understanding and skill". On the
other hand, Sitwell wrote in The American Genius magazine that the comma poem
"springs with a wild force, straight from the poet's being, from his blood, from his spirit,
as a fire breaks from wood, or as a flower grows from its soil".

Despite his success in the United States, Villa was largely dismissed in mainstream
American literature and has been criticized by Asian American scholars for not being
"ethnic" enough.
Awards

Villa was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Writing by American writer

Conrad Aiken, wherein he was also awarded a $1,000 prize for "outstanding work in
American literature", as well as a fellowship from Bollingen Foundation. He was also
bestowed an Academy Award for Literature from The American Academy of Arts and
Letters in 1943.[10] Villa also won first prize in the Poetry Category of UP Golden
Jubilee Literary Contests in 1958, as well as the Pro Patria Award for literature in 1961,
and the Heritage Award for poetry and short stories a year later. He was conferred with
a honoris causa doctorate degree for literature by Far Eastern University in Manila on
1959 (and later by University of the Philippines), and the National Artist Award for
Literature in 1973.

He was one of three Filipinos, along with novelist Jose Rizal and translator Nick
Joaquin, included in World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time
published in 2000, which featured over 1,600 poems written by hundreds of poets in
different languages and culture within a span of 40 centuries dating from the
development of early writing in ancient Sumer and Egypt.