National Artist for

Literature
AMADO VERA
HERNANDEZ

National Artist for

Literature (1973)
AMADO VERA HERNANDEZ

• September 13, 1903-May 24, 1970

• "Makata ng Mangagawa“
• Amado V. Hernandez, poet, playwright, and novelist,
is among the Filipino writers who practiced
"committed art".
AMADO VERA HERNANDEZ
• 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: Tudia at Tudling:
Katipunan ng mga Nalathalang Tulo 1921-1970
• Langaw sa isang Basong Gatas
• Magkabilang Mukha ng sang Bagol at iba Pang
Akda ni Amado V. Hernandez.
N.V.M. GONZALES

National Artist for

Literature (1997)
N.V.M. GONZALES
• September 8, 1915-November 28, 1999
• Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez, better
known as N.V.M. Gonzalez, fictionist,
essayist, poet, and teacher, articulated the
Filipino spirit in rural, urban landscapes.
N.V.M. GONZALES
• Among the many recognitions, he won the First
Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940, received the
Republic Cultural Heritage Award in 1960 and the
Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in 1990. The awards attest to
his triumph in appropriating the English language to
express, reflect and shape Philippine culture and
Philippine sensibility.
• He became U.P's International-Writer-In- Residence and
a member of the Board of Advisers of the U.P. Creative
Writing Center. In 1987, U.P. conferred on him the
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, its highest
academic recognition.
Major works of NVM Gortzava:
• The Winds of April
• Seven Hills Away
• Children of the Ash-Covered Loam and Other Stories
• The Bamboo Dancers
• Look Stranger, on this island Now
• Mindoro and Beyonit: Twenty-One Stories
• The Bread of Salt and Other Stories
• Work on the Mountain
• The Novel of Justice Selected Essays 1968-1994
• A Grammar of Dreams and Other Stories
LAZARO FRANCISCO

National Artist for

Literature (2009
LAZARO FRANCISCO
• 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.
LAZARO FRANCISCO
• 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.
LAZARO FRANCISCO
• 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.
LAZARO FRANCISCO
• His masterpiece novels-Ama, Boyang Nagpatiwakal,
Maganda Pa Ang Daigdig and Doluyong- 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."
BIENVENIDO LUMBERA

National Artist for

Literature (2006)
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.
• As a librettist for the Tales of the Manuvu and Rama
Hari, he pioneered the creative fusion of fine arts and
popular imagination
BIENVENIDO LUMBERA
• 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.
BIENVENIDO LUMBERA
• 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.
BIENVENIDO LUMBERA
• 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.
LEVI CELERIO

National Artist for

Literature/Music (1997)
LEVI CELERIO
• 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.
LEVI CELERIO
• 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
• 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.
F. SIONIL JOSE

National Artist for

Literature (2001)
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.
F. SIONIL JOSE
• 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
• 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.
JOSE GARCIA VILLA

National Artist for

Literature (1973)
"Art is a miraculous flirtation with Nothing!
Aiming for nothing, and landing on the
Sun."
JOSE GARCIA VILLA
• August 5, 1908-February 7, 1997
• Lived in Singalong, Manila
• 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.
JOSE GARCIA VILLA
• He used Doveglion (Dove, Eagle, Lion) as penname,
the very characters he attributed to himself
• He is considered as one of the finest
contemporary poets regardless of race or
language.
• Introduced the reversed consonance
rhyme scheme, including the comma
poems that made full use of the
punctuation mark in an innovative, poetic
way.
ALEJANDRO ROCES

National Artist for

Literature (2003)
"You cannot be a great writer; first, you
have to be a good person"
ALEJANDRO ROCES
• July 13, 1924-May 23, 2011
• 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.
ALEJANDRO ROCES
• His works have been published in various international magazines
and has received national and interriational 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
ALEJANDRO ROCES
• 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
CARLOS P. ROMULO

National Artist for

Literature (1982)
January 14, 1899-
December 15, 1985
CARLOS P. ROMULO
• 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.
CARLOS P. ROMULO
• 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).
CARLOS P. ROMULO
• His other books include his memoirs of his
many years' affiliations with United Nations
(UN):

-Forty Years: A Third World Soldier at the UN

-The Philippine Presidents - his oral history of his

experiences serving all the Philippine presidents.
EDITH L. TIEMPO

National Artist for

Literature (1999)
April 22, 1919-August 21,
2011
EDITH L. TIEMPO
• Edith L. Tiempo, poet, fictionist, teacher and
literary critic is one of the finest Filipino writers
in English whose works are characterized by a
remarkable fusion of style and substance, of
craftsmanship and insight.
• 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".
EDITH L. TIEMPO
• 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, 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)
ROLANDO S. TINIO

National Artist for

Theatre and Literature
(1997)
March 5, 1937-July 7, 1997
ROLANDO S. TINIO
• Playwright, thespian, poet, teacher, critic and
translator
• 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.
ROLANDO S. TINIO
• 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.
His collections of poetry:
• Sitsit sa Kuliglig
• Dunung-Dunungan
• Kristal na Uniberso
• A Trick of Mirrors
Film scripts:
• Now and Forever
• Gamitin Mo Ako

Sarswelas:
• Ang Mestisa
• Ako
• Ang Kiri
• Ana Maria
FRANCISCO ARCELLANA

National Artist for

Literature (1990)
September 6, 1916-August 1,
2002
FRANCISCO ARCELLANA
"The names which were with infinite
slowness revealed, seemed strange and
stranger still, the colors not bright but
deathly dull; the separate letters spelling out
the names of the dead among them, did not
seem to glow or shine with a festive sheen as
did the other living names"(from "The Mats",
Philippine Contemporary Literature, 1963)
FRANCISCO ARCELLANA
• Writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist and teacher,
and one of the most important progenitors of the
modern Filipino short story in English.
• He pioneered the development of the short story as a
lyrical prose-poetic form.
• For Arcellana, the pride of fiction is "that it is able to
render truth, that is able to present reality".
• A brilliant craftsman, his works are now an
indispensable part of a tertiary-level-syllabi all over
the country.
Arcellana's published books are Selected Stories (1962), Poetry and
Politics: The State of Original Writing in English in the Philippines
Today (1977), The Francisco Arcellana Sampler (1990).Some of his
short stories are:
• Frankie
• The Man Who Would Be Poe
• Death in a Factory
• Lina
• A Clown Remembers
• Divided by Two
• The Mats
His poems being:
• The Other Woman
• This Being the Third Poem This
Poem is for Mathilda
• To Touch You and I Touched
Her
VIRGILIO S. ALMARIO

National Artist for

Literature (2003)
VIRGILIO S. ALMARIO
• Virgilio S. Almario, also known as Rio Alma, is a
poet, literary historian and critic, who has
revived and reinvented traditional Filipino poetic
forms, even as he championed modernist
poetics.
• In 34 years, he has published 12 books of poetry,
which include the seminal Makinasyon and
Peregrinasyon and the landmark trilogy
Doktrinang Anakpawis, Mga Retrato at
Rekwerdo and Muli, Sa Kandungan ng Lupa.
VIRGILIO S. ALMARIO
• In these works, his poetic voice soared from the lyrical
to the satirical to the epic, from the dramatic to the
incantatory, in his often severe examination of the self,
and the society
• Many Filipino writers have come under his wing in the
literary workshops he founded-the Galian sa Arte at Tula
(GAT) and the Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika at Anyo
(LIRA).
• He has also long been involved with children's literature
through the Aklat Adarna series, published by his
Children's Communication Center
VIRGILIO S. ALMARIO
• He has been a constant presence as well in
national writing workshops and galvanizes
member writers as chairman emeritus of the
Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL).
• But more than anything else, what Almario
accomplished was that he put a face to the
Filipino writer in the country, one strong face
determinedly wielding a pen into untruths,
hypocrisy, injustice, among others.
NICK JOAQUIN

National Artist for

Literature (1976)
May 4, 1917-April 29, 2004
NICK JOAQUIN
• "Before 1521 we could have been anything and
everything not Filipino; after 1565 we can be
nothing but Filipino." -Culture and History, 1988
• Regarded by many as the most distinguished
Filipino writer in English writing so variedly and
so well about so many aspects of the Filipino.
• Enriched the English language with critics
coining "Joaquinesque" to describe his baroque
Spanish-flavored English or his reinventions of
English based on Filipinisms.
NICK JOAQUIN
• 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.
• Written plays, novels, poems, short stories and essays
including reportage and journalism.
• As a journalist, Nick Joaquin uses the name 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