Looking Back: A blog on National Artists of the Philippines for Literature
Lazaro A. Francisco
National Artist for Literature (2009)
(February 22, 1898 – June 17, 1980)
Prize-winning writer Lazaro A. Francisco developed the social realist tradition in Philippine fiction. His eleven novels, now acknowledged classics of Philippine literature, embodies the author’s 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 novels—Ama, Bayang Nagpatiwakal, Maganda Pa Ang Daigdig and Daluyong—affirm 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 writer’s struggle for national identity.”
F. Sionil Jose
National Artist for Literature (2001)
F. Sionil Jose’s writings since the late 60s, when taken collectively can best be described as epic. Its sheer volume puts him on the forefront of Philippine writing in English. But ultimately, it is the consistent espousal of the aspirations of the Filipino–for national sovereignty and social justice–that guarantees the value of his oeuvre.
In the five-novel masterpiece, the Rosales saga, consisting of The Pretenders, Tree, My Brother, My Executioner, Mass, and Po-on, he captures the sweep of Philippine history while simultaneously narrating the lives of generations of the Samsons whose personal lives intertwine with the social struggles of the nation. Because of their international appeal, his works, including his many short stories, have been published and translated into various languages.
F. Sionil Jose is also a publisher, lecturer on cultural issues, and the founder of the Philippine chapter of the international organization PEN. He was bestowed the CCP Centennial Honors for the Arts in 1999; the Outstanding Fulbrighters Award for Literature in 1988; and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts in 1980.
Carlos P. Romulo
National Artist for Literature (1982)
(January 14, 1899 – December 15, 1985)
Carlos P. Romulo‘s multifaceted career spanned 50 years of public service as educator, soldier, university president, journalist and diplomat. It is common knowledge that he was the first Asian president of the United Nations General Assembly, then Philippine Ambassador to Washington, D.C., and later minister of foreign affairs. Essentially though, Romulo was very much into writing: he was a reporter at 16, a newspaper editor by the age of 20, and a publisher at 32. He was the only Asian to win America’s coveted Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for a series of articles predicting the outbreak of World War II. Romulo, in all, wrote and published 18 books, a range of literary works which included The United (novel), I Walked with Heroes (autobiography), I Saw the Fall of the Philippines, Mother America, I See the Philippines Rise (war-time memoirs).
His other books include his memoirs of his many years’ affiliations with United Nations (UN), Forty Years: A Third World Soldier at the UN, and The Philippine Presidents, his oral history of his experiences serving all the Philippine presidents.
Jose Garcia Villa
National Artist for Literature (1973)
(August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997)
“Art is a miraculous flirtation with Nothing!
Aiming for nothing, and landing on the Sun.”
― Doveglion: Collected Poems
Jose Garcia Villa is considered as one of the finest contemporary poets regardless of race or language. Villa, who lived in Singalong, Manila, introduced the reversed consonance rime scheme, including the comma poems that made full use of the punctuation mark in an innovative, poetic way. The first of his poems “Have Come, Am Here” received critical recognition when it appeared in New York in 1942 that, soon enough, honors and fellowships were heaped on him: Guggenheim, Bollingen, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards. He used Doveglion (Dove, Eagle, Lion) as pen name, the very characters he attributed to himself, and the same ones explored by e.e. cummings in the poem he wrote for Villa (Doveglion, Adventures in Value). Villa is also known for the tartness of his tongue.
Villa’s works have been collected into the following books: Footnote to Youth,Many Voices, Poems by Doveglion, Poems 55, Poems in Praise of Love: The Best Love Poems of Jose Garcia Villa as Chosen By Himself, Selected Stories,The Portable Villa, The Essential Villa, Mir-i-nisa, Storymasters 3: Selected Stories from Footnote to Youth, 55 Poems: Selected and Translated into Tagalog by Hilario S. Francia.
Alejandro Roces
National Artist for Literature (2003)
(July 13, 1924 – May 23, 2011)
“You cannot be a great writer; first, you have to be a good person”
Alejandro Roces, is a short story writer and essayist, and considered as the country’s best writer of comic short stories. He is known for his widely anthologized “My Brother’s Peculiar Chicken.” In his innumerable newspaper columns, he has always focused on the neglected aspects of the Filipino cultural heritage. His works have been published in various international magazines and has received national and international awards.
Ever the champion of Filipino culture, Roces brought to public attention the aesthetics of the country’s fiestas. He was instrumental in popularizing several local fiestas, notably, Moriones and Ati-atihan. He personally led the campaign to change the country’s Independence Day from July 4 to June 12, and caused the change of language from English to Filipino in the country’s stamps, currency and passports, and recovered Jose Rizal’s manuscripts when they were stolen from the National Archives.
His unflinching love of country led him to become a guerilla during the Second World War, to defy martial law and to found the major opposition party under the dictatorship. His works have been published in various international magazines and received numerous national and international awards, including several decorations from various governments.
Rolando S. Tinio
(March 5, 1937 – July 7, 1997)
Rolando S. Tinio, playwright, thespian, poet, teacher, critic, and translator marked his career with prolific artistic productions. Tinio’s chief distinction is as a stage director whose original insights into the scripts he handled brought forth productions notable for their visual impact and intellectual cogency. Subsequently, after staging productions for the Ateneo Experimental Theater (its organizer and administrator as well), he took on Teatro Pilipino. It was to Teatro Pilipino which he left a considerable amount of work reviving traditional Filipino drama by re-staging old theater forms like the sarswela and opening a treasure-house of contemporary Western drama. It was the excellence and beauty of his practice that claimed for theater a place among the arts in the Philippines in the 1960s.
Aside from his collections of poetry (Sitsit sa Kuliglig, Dunung – Dunungan, Kristal na Uniberso, A Trick of Mirrors) among his works were the following: film scripts for Now and Forever, Gamitin Mo Ako, Bayad Puri and Milagros; sarswelas Ang Mestisa, Ako, Ang Kiri, Ana Maria; the komedya Orosman at Zafira; and Larawan, the musical.
Levi Celerio
Levi Celerio is a prolific lyricist and composer for decades. He effortlessly translated/wrote anew the lyrics to traditional melodies: “O Maliwanag Na Buwan” (Iloko), “Ako ay May Singsing” (Pampango), “Alibangbang” (Visaya) among others.
Born in Tondo, Celerio received his scholarship at the Academy of Music in Manila that made it possible for him to join the Manila Symphony Orchestra, becoming its youngest member. He made it to the Guinness Book of World Records as the only person able to make music using just a leaf.
A great number of his songs have been written for the local movies, which earned for him the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Film Academy of the Philippines. Levi Celerio, more importantly, has enriched the Philippine music for no less than two generations with a treasury of more than 4,000 songs in an idiom that has proven to appeal to all social classes.
Resil B. Mojares
Resil B. Mojares is a teacher and scholar, essayist and fictionist, and cultural and literary historian. He is acknowledged as a leading figure in the promotion of regional literature and history. As founding director of the Cebuano Studies Center—an important research institution which placed Cebu in the research and documentation map—he pioneered Cebuano and national identity formation. As a leading figure in cultural and literary history, he networked actively in many organizations. For over 50 years, Mojares has published in diversed forms (fiction, essay, journalism, scholarly articles, and books) across a wide range of discipline (literature, history, biography, cultural studies, and others). To date, he has 17 published books (3 more in the press) and edited, co-edited, or co-authored 11 books, and written numerous articles for popular and scholarly publications.
Ramon L. Muzones
Ramon Muzones (20 March 1913-17 August 1992) was a Hiligaynon poet, essayist, short story writer, critic, grammarian, editor,lexicographer, and novelist who authored an unprecedented 61 completed novels. A number of these represent groundbreaking “firsts’ in Hiligaynon literature such as the feminist Ang Bag-ong Maria Clara, the roman a clef Maambong Nga Sapat (Magnificent Brute,1940), the comic Si Tamblot (1946), the politically satirical Si Tamblot Kandidato Man (Tamblot is Also a Candidate, 1949), the 125- installment longest serialized novel Dama de Noche (1982-84), etc. Hailed by his peers as the longest reigning (1938-1972) among “the three kings of the Hiligaynon novel,” Muzones brought about its most radical changes while ushering in modernism. With a literary career that spanned fifty-three years (1938-1990), his evolution covers the whole history of the Hiligaynon novel from its rise in the 1940s to its decline in the 1970s. Muzones tried his hand at a variety of types and proved adept in all as literary fashions. In the process, he not only extended with remarkable versatility and inventiveness the scope and style of the Hiligaynon novel, he enriched Hiligaynon literature’s dramatis personae.
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