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 Women’s 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 expandedinto 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 Breadloaf’s 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 tertiary-level-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 Alfon’s 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 pre-medicine 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 master’s 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.

OVERSEASTita 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 Baños 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, Carlos’s

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.