AUTHOR

REGION I

Leona florentino is a Filipino poet in the Spanish and Ilocano

languages. She is considered as the "mother of Philippine
women's literature" and the "bridge from oral to literary tradition"
Born to a wealthy and prominent family in Vigan, Ilocos Sur,
Florentino began to write her first verses in Ilocano at a young
age. Despite her potential, she was not allowed to receive a
university education because of her gender. An educated Ilocano
priest taught her advanced Spanish and encouraged her to
develop her voice in poetry.
Florentino married a politician named Elias de los Reyes
at the age of 14. They had five children together. Their
son Isabelo de los Reyes later became a Filipino writer,
activist and senator. Due to the feminist nature of her
writings, Florentino was shunned by her husband and son
she lived alone in exile and separately from her family.
She died at the age of 35

Amador T. Daguio was a poet, novelist and

teacher during the pre-war. He was best known for
his fictions and poems.Daguio was born 8 January
1912 in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, but grew up in
Lubuagan, Mountain Province,Then he stayed with
his uncle at Fort William McKinley to study at Rizal
High School in Pasig.
There he spent his four years of high school
in poverty, extreme loneliness and adolescent pains,
during which he began composing verses in earnest. he learned the craft
of writing from Tom Inglis Moore, an Australian professor at
U.P., and was especially grateful to A.V.H. Hartendorp of Philippine Magazine. His stories and
poems appeared in practically all the Manila papers.One of ten honor graduates at U.P. in 1932,
he returned to teach at his boyhood school in Lubuagan; in 1938, he taught at Zamboanga
Normal
School where he met his wife Estela. They
transferred to Normal Leyte School in 1941
before the Second World War. During the
Japanese Occupation, he joined the
resistance and wrote poems in secret, later
collected as Bataan Harvest.1 0 He was a
bosom-friend of another writer in the
resistance, Manuel E. Arguilla.
In 1952, he obtained his M.A. in English at
Stanford U. as a Fulbright scholar. His
thesis was a study and translation of
Hudhud hi Aliguyon (Ifugao Harvest Song).
In 1954, he obtained his Law degree from
Romualdez Law College in Leyte. Daguio
was editor and public relations officer in
various offices in government and the
military. He also taught for twenty-six years
at the University of the East, U.P., and
Philippine Womens University. In 1973, six
years after his death, Daguio was conferred
the Republic Cultural Heritage Award.

REGION II

The Ivatans are a Filipino ethnolinguistic group

predominant in the Batanes Islands of the Philippines.
The origins of the Ivatans remained untraced among
scholars. Ivatans were free before they were colonized
by the Spaniards.

The culture of the Ivatans is partly influenced by the

environmental condition of Batanes. Unlike the old-type
nipa huts common in the Philippines, Ivatans have adopted
their now-famous stone houses made of limestone,
designed to protect against the hostile climate.

Jose A. Quirino was born in Bayombong, Nueva

Vizcaya, on April 27, 1930. He finished his law degree
at Far Eastern University. He has won three Stanvac
awards for journalism in feature writing. He was also
named Most Prolific and Most Valuable Contributor
of the Philippines Free Press for nine consecutive years.

He was born in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, on

April 27, 1930. He finish his law degree at Far
Eastern University. He has won three Stanvac
awards for journalism in feature writing. He was
also named Most Prolific and Most Valuable
Contributor of the Philippines Free Press for nine
consecutive years.

Felipe Landa Jocano (February 5, 1930 - October 27, 2013) was a

Filipino anthropologist, educator, and author known for his significant
body of work within the field of Philippine Anthropology,[1][4][5] and in
particular for documenting and translating the Hinilawod, a Central
Visayan folk epic.
Jocano was born in Cabatuan, Iloilo- the ninth of eleven children born to
Eusibio Jocano, a persevere farmer, and Anastacia Landa. He finished
his elementary studies at a public school in Iloilo, and then ran away to
Manila. During his return to iloilo he began to devolop his interest in
folklore.
Taking advantage of a study grant, Jocano went to the University of
Chicago to earn a Master's degree in Anthropology, graduating in 1962.
He took up a teaching position there and later got his Ph.D. in
Anthropology from the same university
Jocano eventually decided to come home to teach at the University of the Philippines, where he
served until his retirement 31 years later. In that time, he served among other functions, as
Chairman of the
UP Department of Anthropology, director
of Philippine Studies Program at the UP
Asian Center, Dean of the UP Institute of
Philippine Studies, and head of Asian Center
Museum Laboratory.
Jocano's association with the University of the
Philippines continued after retirement, as he
was named professor emeritus of the UP
Asian Center.

Jocano's work as a scholarly writer was prolific

and wide-ranging. His study of ethnology expanded
into numerous aspects of Filipino life - from folklore and pre-colonial history to international
relations, to rural community and urban slum life. He was one of the first to even suggest the
ethnological study of the development of the Philippines' corporate culture.
In 1999, he was awarded a special citation for a lifetime of writing and publishing on various
aspects of Philippine culture by the Manila Critics Circle.

REGION IV

Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez, familiarly known as simply "N.V.M,"

was born on September 8, 1915 in Romblon and moved to Mindoro
at the age of five. The son of a school supervisor and a teacher,
Gonzalez helped his father by delivering meat door-to-door.
Gonzalez attended Mindoro High School from 1927 to 1930, and
although he studied at National University in Manila, he never obtained
a degree. While in Manila, Gonzalez 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. A Rockefeller Foundation fellowship,

awarded to Gonzalez in 1948, allowed the aspiring author to travel to
Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and Columbia University in

New York City. While at Stanford, Gonzalez

attended lectures and classes from many
prominent writers, Wallace Stegner and Katherine
Anne Porter amongst them.

After Gonzalez returned to the Philippines in 1950,

he began a long teaching career, N.V.M. started his
career at the age of 19; 65 years later, he was still
creating affairs with letters. He passed away on
November 28, 1999, due to kidney complications.

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 in Sta.Cruz Manila. 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.
He contunued writting in various school papers at
UP Diliman, until he recevied a Rockfeller Grant and
became a member in creative writing at the University of
Iowa and Breadloafs Writers.

Arcellana pioneered the development of the short

story as a lyrical prose-poetic form within Filipino

literature. His works are now often taught in tertiarylevel-syllabi in the Philippines.
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.
Arcellana died in 2002. As a National Artist, he
received a state funeral at the Libingan ng mga
Bayani.

Estrella Alfon was born in San Nicolas, Cebu City

on March 27, 1917. She went to medical school to
finish her medicinal studies but when she was
misdiagnosed for having tuberculosis, she had to
withdraw from her studies. She finished her education
with a degree in Associate of Arts instead.
She became the first and only female member of the
Veronicans, a group of writers in the 1930s, prior to the
Second World War, led by Francisco Arceuana and H.R. Ocampo. They were recognized as the
first group of Filipino writers who wrote almost exclusively in English. She was named the most
prolific Filipina writer prior to World War II.
Estrella Alfons first story was Grey Confetti which was published in 1935. One of her stories,
Fairy Tale for the City, was condemned by the catholic League of the Philippines for its being
obscene. When she was brought to court for the trial, some of her fellow writers stood by her but
some did not and that hurt her deeply.

She was appointed professor of the Creative Writing

at the University of the Philippines, Manila despite
having only an Associate of Arts degree. In 1940,
she won the Honorable Mention in the Commonwealth
Literary Award for writing her short story Dear Esmeralda.
She took home all the awards in the Arena Theater Play
Writing Contest for four of her outstanding plays namely,
Losers Keepers, strangers, Rice, and Beggar.
In 1961, she won the top prize in the Palanca Contest for her story With Patches of Many
Hues.
On December 28, 1983, during the awards night of the Manila Film Festival, she suffered a
heart attack which led to her death the same night.

REGION V

Simeon Dumdum, Jr. (born March 7, 1948) is a Regional Trial

Court Executive Judge in Cebu City, Philippines, and a
published poet. He was born in Balamban, Cebu, where he grew
up and had his early schooling. He attended St. Francis
Academy for his secondary education, and then went to St.
Clement's College in Iloilo City, where he did a year of college.
In Ireland, he went to University College, Galway.
He once studied for the priesthood in Galway, Ireland, but
left the seminary to take up law. After years of practicing law, he
was appointed Regional Trial Court judge in Cebu. He won
prizes for his poetry, which he has published and read abroad.

He has published five books - The Gift of Sleep

(poems), Third World Opera (poems),
Love in the Time of the Camera (essays),
Selected Poems and New (poems), and
My Pledge of Love Cannot be Broken (essays).
He won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award
for English poetry five times, and the Manila
Critics Circle's National Book Award three times. In 2005, he received a medallion for writing
the best decision in a criminal case, second level courts, in the Judicial Excellence Awards
sponsored by the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

REGION VIII

Born on May 25, 1921 in Tacloban City, Leyte, the

poet Carlos A. Angeles graduated from Rizal High 1938
and went on to study at various universities, first in premedicine and next pre-law. He had one semester at
Ateneo de Manila, two at UP in 1941 (where he became a
member of the UP Writers' Club), and one quarter at
Central Luzon Colleges. He did not return to school after
World War II, but he led an impressive career as chief of
the Philippine bureau of International News Service from
1950 to 1958, guest of the US State Department on a
Smith-Mundt leader grant, press assistant under the
Garcia administration, and public relations manager of
PanAm Airlines from 1958 to 1980. He also served in the
board of directors of International PEN, Philippine chapter.

In 1964, the same year that poetry was first

considered in the Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature, Angeles' collection of
poems, A Stun of Jewels(Manila: Alberto S.
Florentino, 1963), received first prize in the
.prestigious contest. Comprised of 47 poems
and dedicated to Angeles' wife, A Stun of
Jewelsalso won the Republic Cultural Heritage Award for Literature.

Merlie Alunan was born December 14, 1943 in Dingle Iloilo

is a filipina poet. Some time in her life she moved to the island
of leyte where she stayed since 1959 when she was still in high
school. She traveled around the visayan island until she finally
settled in tacloban in 2000. The island is largely rural and most
of the people are engaged in physicaly demanding activities
like fishing or farming thus there is not much room for intellectual
life, in that sense , poetry was her way to resist the mind becoming
numb due to a lack of activities and intellectual challenges.
She obtained a masters degree in english at the Siliman University, majoring in creative
writting. By the time she was 26 she had completed her MA.
Once she started her family of five children, she stopped
writting, she resumed writting poetry in her early forties.
She brought up her five children alone by holding down her
job as a teacher in creative writing at the University of the
Philippines Visayas Tacloban College.

She received the lilian jerome thornton award for

nonfiction, don calros Palanca Memorial Award for
Literature, National Book Award, Sunthorn Phu Literary
Awards, and Ani ng Dangal.

OVERSEAS
Tita Lacambra-Ayala is an acclaimed writer, poet
and painter. Born in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, Tita studied at
the University of the Philippines, and after a fruitful stint
as freelance writer for various major magazines and as
press officer of the UP Los Baos College of Agriculture
Extension Office, she eventually settled in Mindanao with
her husband painter Jose V. Ayala, Jr. (deceased).
She has published four books of poems: Sunflower Poems
(Filipino Signatures, Manila, 1960), Orginary Poems (Erehwon Publishing, Manila, 1969),
Adventures of a Professional Amateur (prose) (UP Press, 1999), and Friends and Camels in a
Time of Olives (UP Press, 1999.) She co-edited the visual and literary arts journal Davao
Harvest with Alfredo Salanga, Gimba Magazine, and Etno-Culture. She produced and edited the
30-year-old Road Map Series, a folio of Mindanao artistic works and literary writings.
She won the Palanca in the English Short Story
Category Everything (Third Prize, 1967), and for

Poetry in English A Filigree of Seasons (Second

Prize). She also garnered the following awards and
citations: Gawad Balagtas Awardee for Poetry in
English (1991), Manila Critics Circle Special
Citation for Road Map Series (1989), Philippine
Free Press Awardee for Short Story (1970, Third
Prize), Focus Philippines Poetry Awardee, Gawad
Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas UMPIL
Achievement Award (1991), and National Fellow for
Poetry, UP Creative Writing Center (1994-95).

Lacambra-Ayala is a founding member of the Davao Writers Guild, and is the mother of famous
songwriter-musicians Joey Ayala and Cynthia Alexander and poet Fernando (Pido) Ayala.

Dr. Fatima Lim-Wilson received her BA in English degree (cum laude) from the
Jesuit-run institution, Ateneo de Manila University, her MA in English from the State
University of New York at Buffalo, and her PhD in English from the University of
Denver.
She is the author of two award-winning collections of poetry, Wandering Roots/From
the Hothouse and Crossing the Snow Bridge. Her short stories, plays, and book
reviews have been published in scholarly and literary journals. She has studied in
several countries as the recipient of scholarships from Oxford University, University
of Vienna, University of Oslo, University College-Dublin, International Christian
University (Japan), Yeats International Summer School (Ireland, Uppsala University
(Sweden), Breadloaf Writers Conference (Middlebury College, Vermont), and Duke
University's Writers Workshop (North Carolina).
Her poetry has won several awards such as the Pushcart Prize, the Philippine
National Book Award, the Colorado Book Authors Prize, the Ohio State University
Press Award, the Montalvo Poetry Prize, and the Seattle Arts Commission Grant for
Resident Artists. She recently received a grant from APUS for research work in the
Philippines.
She served as a Confidential Assistant in the Office of the President of the
Philippines in the administration of Corazon Aquino. Professor Lim-Wilson has taught
a variety of courses specializing in English Literature and Composition, Creative

Writing, World Literature, Professional Writing, and Business Communication in

several universities and colleges, both on campus and online, for over a decade.

Carlos Bulosan was born in the Philippines in the rural

farming village of Mangusmana, near the town of Binalonan
(Pangasinan province, Luzon island). He was the son of a
farmer and spent most of his upbringing in the countryside
with his family. Like many families in the Philippines, Carloss
family struggled to survive during times of economic hardship.
Many families were impoverished and many more would
suffer because of the conditions in the Philippines created
by US colonization. Rural farming families like Carlos family
experienced severe economic disparity due to the growing concentration of wealth and power
in the hands of the economic and political elite. Determined to help support his family and
further his education, Carlos decided to come to America with the dream to fulfill these goals.
Traveling by ship, Carlos arrived in Seattle
on July 22, 1930 at the age of seventeen. With only
three years of education from the Philippines,
Carlos spoke little English and had barely any
money left. Desperate to survive, he soon began
working various low-paying jobs: servicing in hotels,
harvesting in the fields, and even embarking to the
Alaskan canneries. During his hardships in finding
employment, Carlos experienced much economic
difficulty and racial brutality that significantly

damaged his health and eventually changed his

perception of America.
From several years of racist attacks,
starvation, and sickness, Carlos underwent surgery
for tuberculosis in Los Angeles. His health condition
with tuberculosis forced him to undergo three
operations where he lost most of the right side of
his ribs and the function of one lung. Yet, he
recovered and stayed in the hospital for about two
years where he spent much of his time reading and
writing.
The discrimination and unhealthy working conditions Carlos had experienced in many of his
workplaces encouraged him to participate in union organizing with other Filipinos and various
workers. Carlos become a self-educated and prolific writer determined to voice the struggles he
had undergone as a Filipino coming to America and the struggles he had witnessed of other
people. Like many of his fellow Filipinos in his time, Carlos never had the opportunity to return to
the Philippines. After years of hardship and flight, he passed away in Seattle suffering from an
advanced stage of bronchopneumonia. He is buried at Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.