JOSE GARCIA VILLA

Born
in Singalong, Manila, Philippines
August 05, 1908
Died
February 07, 1997
Genre
Poetry, Literature & Fiction, Children's Books

Jose Garcia Villa 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 rime 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.

Although José Garcia Villa (1914–1997) is largely known as a Filipino poet, he spent 67 years of his
life in the United States. His work has been praised as innovative and talented. A contributor to the Dictionary
of Oriental Literature observed of Villa that "His craftsmanship and skill remains unchallenged among Filipino
poets."Born in Manila, Philippines, on August 5, 1914, Villa was the son of Simeon Villa, a doctor who was
Army chief-of-staff during the Philippine revolution against Spain, as well as personal physician to
revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo; his mother was Guia Garcia, a wealthy landowner. Villa attended the
University of the Philippines in 1929. He first studied medicine, and then switched to law, but he was always
interested in writing, and as a law student he wrote short stories and poetry. Some of his writing, notably a series
of erotic verse titled "Man Poems," was so controversial that the authorities at the University of the Philippines
expelled him. In that same year, however, Villa won a prize from the Philippines Free Press for the best short
story of the year.

Francisco "Franz" Arcellana

Francisco "Franz" Arcellana (Zacarias Eugene Francisco Quino Arcellana) was a Filipino writer, poet,
essayist, critic, journalist and teacher. He was born in Sta. Cruz, Manila. In 1932 Arcellana entered the
University of the Philippines (UP) as a pre-medicine student and graduated in 1939 with a bachelor of
philosophy in degree. In his junior year, mainly because of the publication of his “trilogy of the turtles” in the
Literary Apprentice, Arcellana was invited to join the UP Writers Club by Manuel Arguilla – who at that time
was already a campus literary figure. In 1934, he edited and published Expression, a quarterly of experimental
writing. It caught the attention of Jose Garcia Villa who started a correspondence with Arcellana. It also
spawned the Veronicans, a group of 13 pre-WWII who rebelled against traditional forms and themes in
Philippine literature. In 1932 Arcellana published his first story. “The Man Who Could Be Poe” in Graphic
while still a student at Torres High School. The following year two of his short stories, “Death is a Factory” and
“Lina,” were included in Jose Garcia Villa's honor roll. During the 1930's, which he calls his most productive
period, he wrote his most significant stories including, “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal” cited in 1938 by Villa
as the year's best. He also began writing poetry at this time, many of them appearing in Philippine Collegian,
Graphic and Herald Midweek Magazine.

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.
Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez

Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez (guhn-ZAH-lehs), who sometimes adopted the surname spelling
“Gonzales,” was born into a family of educators, his mother being a teacher and his father a school supervisor.
When he was four years old, Gonzalez moved with his family to the barrio of Wasig in Mindoro. This locale
had a seminal influence on his writing, as the titles of his works “Hunger in Barok,” “Life and Death in a
Mindoro Kaingin,” and Mindoro and Beyondsuggest. From 1927 to 1930, Gonzalez stayed with aunts and
uncles in Romblon, his last year being spent at Mindoro High School.
Gonzalez failed his University of the Philippines entrance examination, but in 1949 he became the first
to teach college courses there without holding a degree. In 1933 Gonzalez visited Manila and met famed
Commonwealth period president Manuel Quezon y Molina but quickly returned to Mindoro. The next year he
went back to Manila, where he joined the Veronicans, certainly the finest literary organization in the pre-World
War II Philippines, noteworthy for such luminaries as Manuel A. Viray among its members. In that same year,
Gonzalez entered an essay commemorating Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Calapan in a students’ literary contest
(Gonzalez did two years of college studies at National University and Manila Law College). Noted poet and
literary critic A. E. Litiatco awarded Gonzalez the five-peso first prize. This was the first of numerous awards,
prizes, and other honors Gonzalez garnered. Among the most prestigious were an honorable mention in the First
Commonwealth Literary Contest (1940) for The Winds of April; Rockefeller grants in 1949-1950, 1952, and
1964; a Republic Award of Merit (1954), and a Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1960) for The Bamboo
Dancers; a National Artist Award for Literature (1997); and a Philippines Centennial Award for Literature
(1998).

Edith L. Tiempo

Edith L. Tiempo, poet, fictionist, teacher and literary critic was one of the finest Filipino writers in
English whose works are characterized by a remarkable fusion of style and substance, of craftsmanship and
insight. She was born on April 22, 1919 in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. Her poems are intricate verbal
transfigurations of significant experiences as revealed, in two of her much anthologized pieces, “The Little
Marmoset” and “Bonsai”. As fictionist, Tiempo was as morally profound. Her language has been marked as
“descriptive but unburdened by scrupulous detailing.” She was an influential tradition in Philippine literature in
English. Together with her late husband, Edilberto K. Tiempo, she founded and directed the Silliman National
Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City, which has produced some of the country’s best writers.Tiempo’s
published works include the novel A Blade of Fern (1978), The Native Coast (1979), and The Alien
Corn (1992); the poetry collections, The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems (1966), and The Charmer’s Box
and Other Poems(1993); and the short story collection Abide, Joshua, and Other Stories (1964).

Carlos Quirino
Carlos Quirino (1910 – 1999) obtained his journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin at
Madison in 1931. The first biography he wrote was on President Manuel Quezon, titled Man of Destiny (1935).
He spent some years working as an assistant to his uncle, future Philippine president Elpidio Quirino, who also
supported his law studies until he passed the bar in 1940.Quirino enlisted in the Philippine Army and was a
second lieutenant before the outbreak of World War II. With the Japanese invasion, he was captured and forced
to participate in the Bataan Death March, but managed to escape and join the underground resistance.In 1961
President Diosdado Macapagal appointed Quirino as director of the National Library. His historical expertise led
Fernando Zobel to task him with overseeing the creation of a diorama exhibit, which would eventually form the
beginnings of the Ayala Museum. Quirino became the museum’s first director in 1970. During his lifetime
Quirino wrote dozens of books on Philippine history and culture, covering topics as diverse as war, politics, art,
business, and agriculture. His prizewinning biography, The Great Malayan (1940), was one of the earliest
English-language biographies on Jose Rizal. Other works include Magsaysay and the
Philippines (1958), Philippine Cartography (1959), Damian Domingo: First Eminent Filipino
Painter (1961), History of the Philippine Sugar Industry (1974), and Filipinos at War (1981). For his decades of
meticulous research and innumerable contributions to the study of Philippine history, Quirino was honored in
1997 as a National Artist of the Philippines in the newly-created category of Historical Literature.

Alejandro Roces

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.

Carlos P. Rómulo
Carlos P. Romulo (1899-1985) was an author and the foremost diplomat of the Philippines. He was the
only Filipino journalist to win the Pulitzer Prize and the first Asian to serve as president of the UN General
Assembly (1949). He also gained prominence as America's most trusted Asian spokesman. Carlos Romulo was
born on Jan. 14, 1899, in Manila; but his well-to-do parents lived in Camiling, Tarlac. His father, Gregorio, was
a Filipino guerrilla fighter with the Philippine revolutionary government of Emilio Aguinaldo during the
Filipino-American War. Romulo claimed to have witnessed his grandfather tortured by the water cure
administered by American soldiers. After early schooling in Tarlac, Romulo entered the University of the
Philippines, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1918. After getting a master of arts from Columbia
University in 1921, he returned to work as professor of English and chairman of the English department of the
University of the Philippines (1923-1928).

Romulo became editor in chief of TVT Publications in 1931 and publisher and editor of the Philippines
Herald (1933-1941). In 1929 he was appointed regent of the University of the Philippines. Previously he had
served as secretary to Senate president Manuel Quezon (1922-1925) and as member of the Philippine
Independence Mission, headed by Quezon. Romulo belonged to the elite, the oligarchic stratum of the Filipino
ruling class, by virtue of his role as defender of the interests of the propertied minority.

After serving as president of the University of the Philippines and secretary of education (1963-1968),
Romulo was appointed by President Marcos to the post of secretary of foreign affairs. Rómulo was the recipient
of more than a hundred honorary doctorates, awards, and medals, given by American and Asian universities,
organizations, and foreign governments. Romulo's prolific pen is attested to by his books, such as I Saw the Fall
of the Philippines (1942), Mother America (1943), My Brother Americans (1945), I See the Philippines
Rise (1946), Crusade in Asia (1955), The Magsaysay Story (1956), I Walk with Heroes(1961), and Identity and
Change (1965).

Lazaro A. Francisco

Lázaro Francisco y Angeles, also known as Lazaro A. Francisco (February 22, 1898 – June 17, 1980)
was a Filipinonovelist, essayist and playwright. Francisco is the recipient of the National Artist of the
Philippines for Literature, posthumously, in 2009.

He started writing in 1925, with five of his novels took him to fame. Being an assessor in an
agricultural province, most of his writings were focused on small farmers and their current conditions with
foreign businessmen. This lead him to win separate awards from Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940 and
1946, for his masterpieces, Singsing na Pangkasal and Tatsulok, respectively.
In 1958, he established the Kapatiran ng mga Alagad ng Wikang Pilipino, roughly translated as "Brotherhood of
the Disciples of the Filipino Language", a society that campaigned the use of Tagalog as the national language
of the Philippines.
He received other distinguished awards and accolades in literature in his lifetime, including the Balagtas Award
(1969), the Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1970) and the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award from the
government of Manila.

Bienvenido Lumbera

Bienvenido Lumbera, is a poet, librettist, and scholar. As a poet, he introduced to Tagalog literature
what is now known as Bagay poetry, a landmark aesthetic tendency that has helped to change the vernacular
poetic tradition. He is the author of the following works: Likhang Dila, Likhang Diwa (poems in Filipino and
English), 1993; Balaybay, Mga Tulang Lunot at Manibalang, 2002; Sa Sariling Bayan, Apat na Dulang
May Musika, 2004; “Agunyas sa Hacienda Luisita,” Pakikiramay, 2004.

As a librettist for the Tales of the Manuvu and Rama Hari, he pioneered the creative fusion of fine
arts and popular imagination. As a scholar, his major books include the following: Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898:
Tradition and Influences in its Development; Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology,
Revaluation: Essays on Philippine Literature, Writing the Nation/Pag-akda ng Bansa.

Cirilo F. Bautista

Cirilo F. Bautista, whose poems, stories and essays in English and Filipino have made him one of the
Philippines’ most honored authors and earned him the title of National Artist for Literature. Bautista wrote
poetry, fiction and essays. His best known work is the epic poetry trilogy “The Trilogy of Saint Lazarus,” made
up of the “The Archipelago (1970), “Telex Moon” (1981) and “Sunlight on Broken Stones” (1999). A prolific
writer, he had written more than 20 books, his last being the poetry collection “In Many Ways: Poems 2012-
2016,” published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House in 2018.

Nick Joaquin

Nick Joaquin, is regarded by many as the most distinguished Filipino writer in English writing so
variedly and so well about so many aspects of the Filipino. Nick Joaquin has also enriched the English language
with critics coining “Joaquinesque” to describe his baroque Spanish-flavored English or his reinventions of
English based on Filipinisms. Aside from his handling of language, Bienvenido Lumbera writes that Nick
Joaquin’s significance in Philippine literature involves his exploration of the Philippine colonial past under
Spain and his probing into the psychology of social changes as seen by the young, as exemplified in stories such
as Doña Jeronima, Candido’s Apocalypse and The Order of Melchizedek. Nick Joaquin has written plays,
novels, poems, short stories and essays including reportage and journalism. As a journalist, Nick Joaquin uses
the nome de guerre Quijano de Manila but whether he is writing literature or journalism, fellow National Artist
Francisco Arcellana opines that “it is always of the highest skill and quality”. Among his voluminous works
are The Woman Who Had Two Navels, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, Manila, My Manila: A History
for the Young, The Ballad of the Five Battles, Rizal in Saga, Almanac for Manileños, Cave and Shadows.

F. Sionil Jose

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.

Virgilio S. Almario

National Artist Virgilio S. Almario is a poet, literary historian, critic, translator, editor, teacher, and
cultural manager known as Rio Alma, conferred as national artist for literature on 2003. Some of his influential
works are Makinasyon, Peregrinasyon, and his famed trilogy Doktrinang Anakpawis, Mga Retrato at Rekwerdo
and Muli, Sa Kandungan ng Lupa.

AMADO V. HERNANDEZ
National Artist for Literature
(September 13, 1903 – May 24, 1970)

Amado V. Hernandez, poet, playwright, and novelist, is among the Filipino writers who practiced
“committed art.” In his view, the function of the writer is to act as the conscience of society and to affirm the
greatness of the human spirit in the face of inequity and oppression. Hernandez’s contribution to the
development of Tagalog prose is considerable — he stripped Tagalog of its ornate character and wrote in prose
closer to the colloquial than the “official” style permitted. His novel Mga Ibong Mandaragit, first written by
Hernandez while in prison, is the first Filipino socio-political novel that exposes the ills of the society as evident
in the agrarian problems of the 50s.

Hernandez’s other works include Bayang Malaya, Isang Dipang Langit, Luha ng Buwaya, Amado
V. Hernandez: Tudla at Tudling: Katipunan ng mga Nalathalang Tula 1921-1970, Langaw sa Isang
Basong Gatas at Iba Pang Kuwento ni Amado V. Hernandez, Magkabilang Mukha ng Isang Bagol at Iba
Pang Akda ni Amado V. Hernandez.

ROLANDO S. TINIO
National Artist for Theater and Literature (1997)
(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
National Artist for Literature / Music (1997)
(April 30, 1910 – April 2, 2002)

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 Mojares, National Artist for Literature

Mojares is a multi-awarded writer, historian, and literary critic. His works include Origins and Rise of
the Filipino Novel, The War Against the Americans, and books about eminent Filipinos, such as Vicente Sotto,
Pedro Paterno, Isabelo delos Reyes, and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera. He has won several National Book Awards
from the Manila Critics Circle and founded the Cebuano Studies Center, a library and research center dedicated
to Cebuano culture and history.

Ramon Muzones, National Artist for Literature

Muzones is the preeminent name in West Visayan fiction. He is best known for his Hiligaynon
novel Margosatubig: The Story of Salagunting, about a fictional Muslim state in Mindanao and the struggles of
its hero, Salagunting, to wrest it from the clutches of usurpers. A tale that combines intrigue, romance, pre-
colonial lore, fantasy, and adventure, it unfolded as a series in the Hiligaynon magazine Yuhum. In 1989, he
received the Gawad CCP para sa Sining, an award given every 3 years to artists whose works have enriched
their art form. His proclamation as National Artist is posthumous as Muzones died in 1992.