REGION 1 AUTHORS

1.Carlos Bulosan

 Carlos Sampayan Bulosan (November 2, 1913 – September 11, 1956) was an English-language Filipino novelist and poet who spent most of his life in the United States. His best-known work is the semi-autobiographical Americas is in the house..Carlos Bulosan was born to Ilocano parents in the Philippines in the rural village of Mangusmana, in the town of Binalonan, Pangasinan. There is considerable debate around his actual birth date, as he himself used several dates, but 1911 is generally considered the most reliable answer, based on his baptismal records, but according to the late Lorenzo Duyanen Sampayan, his childhood playmate and nephew, Carlos was born on November 2, 1913. Most of his youth was spent in the countryside as a farmer. It is during his youth that he and his family were economically impoverished by the rich and political elite, which would become one of the main themes of his writing. His home town is also the starting point of his famous semi-autobiographical novel, America is in the Heart.Following the pattern of many Filipinos during the American colonial period, he left for America on July 22, 1930 at age 17, in the hope of finding salvation from the economic depression of his home. He never again saw his Philippine homeland. Upon arriving in Seattle, he met with racism and was forced to work in low paying jobs. He worked as a farmworker, harvesting grapes and asparagus, and doing other types of hard work in the fields of California. He also worked as a dishwasher with his brother and Lorenzo in the famous Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. He was active in labour movement along the Pacific coast of the United States and edited the 1952 Yearbook for International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 37, a predominantly Filipino American cannery trade union based in Seattle.

After many years of discrimination, starvation and sickness, Bulosan had to undergo surgery for tuberculosis in the Los Angeles County Sanitarium, now the USC Medical Center. The tuberculosis operations made him lose most of the right side of his ribs and the function of one lung. He was confined in the hospital for two years where he took advantage and read one book per day. He became a prolific writer and voice concerning for Filipinos and the struggles they were forced to live in.

His other novels include The Laughter of My Father, which were originally published as short sketches, and the posthumously published The Cry and the Dedication which detailed the armed Huk Rebellion in the Philippines. One of his most famous essays was "Freedom from Want," commissioned by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of a series on the "Four Freedoms" and published on March 26, 1943 in the Saturday Evening Post. Maxim Lieber was his literary agent in 1944.

Carlos Bulosan's works and legacy is heralded in a state of the art permanent exhibition known as 'The Carlos Bulosan Memorial Exhibit" displayed at the historic Eastern Hotel in the heart of Seattle's International District highlighted with a massive centerpiece mural titled: 'Secrets of History created by renowned artist Eliseo Art Silva^.

Works

• The Laughter of My Father
• The Cry and the Dedication
• My Father's Tragedy

 

 2. F. Sionil José

F. Sionil José or in full Francisco Sionil José (born December 3, 1924) is one of the most widely-read Filipino writers in the English language. His novels and short stories depict the social underpinnings of class struggles and colonialism in Filipino society. José's works - written in English - have been translated into 22 languages, including Korean, Indonesian, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Dutch.

Biography

José was born in Rosales, Pangasinan, the setting of many of his stories. He spent his childhood in Barrio Cabugawan, Rosales, where he first began to write. José was of Ilocano descent whose family had migrated to Pangasinan before his birth. Fleeing poverty, his forefathers traveled from Ilocos towards Cagayan Valley through the Santa Fe Trail. Like many migrant families, they brought their lifetime possessions with them, including uprooted molave posts of their old houses and their alsong, a stone mortar for pounding rice.^[1][2][3][4]

One of the greatest influences to José was his industrious mother who went out of her way to get him the books he loved to read, while making sure her family did not go hungry despite poverty and landlessness. José started writing in grade school, at the time he started reading. In the fifth grade, one of José’s teachers opened the school library to her students, which is how José managed to read the novels of José Rizal, Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Faulkner and Steinbeck. Reading about Basilio and Crispin in Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere made the young José cry, because injustice was not an alien thing to him. When José was five years old, his grandfather who was a soldier during the Philippine revolution, had once tearfully showed him the land their family had once tilled but was taken away by rich mestizo landlords who knew how to work the system against illiterates like his grandfather.^[1]

"Authors like myself choose the city as a setting for their fiction because the city itself illustrates the progress or the sophistication that a particular country has achieved. Or, on the other hand, it might also reflect the kind of decay, both social and perhaps moral, that has come upon a particular people."-F. Sionil José, BBC.com, July 30, 200

Sionil José also owns Solidaridad Bookshop, which is on Padre Faura Street in Ermita, Manila. The bookshop offers mostly hard-to-find books and Filipiniana reading materials. It is said to be one of the favorite haunts of many local writers.^[1][2][3][4]

In his regular column, Hindsight, in The Philippine Star, dated September 12, 2011, he wrote "Why we are shallow," blaming the decline of Filipino intellectual and cultural standards on a variety of modern amenities, including media, the education system—particularly the loss of emphasis on classic literature and the study of Greek and Latin--, and the abundance and immediacy of information on the internet.

WorksA five-novel series that spans three centuries of Philippine history, translated into 22 languages

• Po-on (Dusk) (1984) ISBN 971-8845-10-0
• The Pretenders (1962) ISBN 971-8845-00-3
• My Brother, My Executioner (1973) ISBN 971-8845-16-X
• Mass (December 31, 1974) ISBN 0-86861-572-2
• Tree (1978)

3.Gregorio Taer Affiano

Born: Vigan, Ilocos Sur; November 17, 1934. Fictionist, teacher. He is the son of Esteban Amano and Olympia Taer. He obtained his education degree from the Philippine College of Arts and Trades in Manila. He was later granted a scholarship under the Colombo Plan to study in Tokyo, Japan. He taught at the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan, became principal then chief of the Education Department if the Ilocos Norte College of Arts and Trade (now a college of Don Mariano Marcos State University) in Laoag City. He is a member of Gunglo Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano (GUMIL) Laoag, GUMIL Ilocos Norte and GUMIL Filipinas. He is at present a professor and administrator at the Don Mariano Marcos State University.

Amano began writing in Ilocano in 1957.That same year, his poem “Arado” was published in Bannawag. Since then, he has published many poems, essays on practical arts, and short stories in the same magazine. His best-known stories are “Dimo Koma Biroken Ti Kaasida” (Do Not Look For Their Mercy), “Talna” (Peace), and “Bubon” (Well). Some of his works were anthologized in Tugot (Foot-prints), edited by Onofrecia I. Ibarra and Hermenegildo A.Viloria and published by GUMIL Ilocos Sur. A former editor of the Philippine Educational Journal, he has also authorized four popular books on practical arts.

In 1986 he won first prize in the short story writing contest in the Gov Roque Ablan Awards for Iluko Literature

4.Clemente Alejandria

Born: Canaman, Camarines Sur; November 23, 1895. Poet,playwright. His parents are Geronimo Alejandria and Victoria Bulocon. He finished his segunda ensenanza (high school) at the Seminario-Colegio de Nueva Caceres , Naga,later studying again in the Canaman Public School . He was a member of the writer's organization Sanghiran nin Bikol.

Of his many works, only three poems are said to be extant: “Pagoroaggoyog” (Just Hum to Yourself), published in Sanghiram, 1927; “Estrella Del Sur” (Star of the South) and “Sa Madaling Osip” (In Short), which appeared in Bicolnon magazine,1940. Other poems were published in Kalendariong Bikol. His plays, now said to be all lost, include Prinsipe Lizardo (Prince Lizardo) and Prinsipe Fernando (Prinsipe Fernando).

Alejandria won second prize in the 1926 poetry contest for his translation of Jose Rizal's “Mi ultimo adios” (My Last Farewell).

5. Santiago B. Villafania

Santiago B. Villafania is a Pangasinan poet [based in Manila]. He writes in Pangasinan, Filipino/Tagalog and English. 

He was born in Tuliao, Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan on January 31, 1971. Finished a Bachelor of Arts degree Major in English at the University of Pangasinan in 1991. 

Some of his poems have appeared in local and international print and web publications. His poetry collection in Pangasinan language Balikas na Caboloan is among the works published by the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA) under its UBOD New Writers Series (2005). 

Villafania advocates for the resurgence of Pangasinan as a literary language. He was awarded the Writer of the Year (2004) by the Ulupan na Pansiansia'y Salitan Pangasinan (Association for the Preservation of the Pangasinan Language) and Award of Merit (2005) by the Association of Writers and Authors for Regional Development (Region I) for his first book, Pinabli tan arum ni'ran Anlong(Beloved and Other Poems) published in 2003.

His second book of poems, Malagilion: Soniton Pangasinan , is an attempt to open the propylaea of literary renaissance in Pangasinan. He is currently coming out with a chapbook of his poems in English titled Murtila .

6. Paul B. Zafaralla

Born on June 22, 1983 in Upon, Pinili, Ilocos Norte. He is a multilingual writer (Iluko, English, Filipino) on Ilocano and Philippine culture and the arts for the past 51 years. His outlets are Bannawag , Rima, Iluko anthologies, lectures, English broadsheets, popular and professional magazines, journals, and classrooms. He enjoys regional, national and international recognitions for his incisive and scholarly critiques. The Association of the Philippines gave him a special cognition for his body of published works in 1971. This was followed by numerous official participation in national and ASEAN congresses on arts and aesthetics, in many of which as a paper reader. At the University of the Philippines where he received his degrees (BFA, MAED, Ph. D in Communication), his body of published works had been duly recognized. The Manila Critics Circle awarded him the 2004 National Book Award for Rice in the Seven Arts, Sept. 4, 2005. Pinili-Metro Manila Residents Associations, Inc., awarded him the Don Ignacio Lafrades Award for Distinguished Achievement, December 9, 2006. Dr. Zafaralla is a member of GUMIL Filipinas; PEN International; Phi Kappa Phi International Honor Society; and Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society in the Social Sciences.

7. Jose A. Bragado

Jose A. Bragado was born on 25 August, 1936 in Santa, Ilocos Sur. He took up several courses in college, including Journalism and English. He has worked as News & Comics Editor and Literary Editor. He has published in the Bannawag magazine 20 novels, 65 short stories, 50 poems, 170 feature articles and essays, translated 5 novels from Filipino to Iluko; he has alos edited and co-authored several books. He has published short stories in the Liwayway magazine. He wrote the life of Gabriela and Diego Silang for Balintataw , a radio program of Cecille Gidote-Alvarez at the DZRH. The drama ran for one month. He has received various awards for his contributions to Iluko literature. He was nominated for National Artist for Literature Award in 2003.

 

8.Reynaldo Arquero Duque  Born on October 29. 1945 in Bagani Ubbog, Candon, Ilocos Sur. He has worked as Managing Editor of Liwayway magazine. He was also president of Gunglo Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano (GUMIL) Filipinas. Duque writes novels, poetry and short stories in Ilocano, Filipino, and English. Duque has garnered 63 literary awards in English, Ilocano and Filipino, 8 from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, 2 from the Palihang Aurelio Tolentino, 4 from the Gawad CCP sa Panitikan, 9 from the Gov. Roque Ablan Awards for Iluko literature, 3 from the Golden Leaf Literary Awards, 7 from the Talaang Ginto and Gantimpalang Collantes of the Surian ng Wikang Pambansa, 2 from the Focus Philippines literary contest and Kabataang Barangay Playwriting Contest, and 2 from the Population Commission Playwriting Contest. He was National Fellow for Translation, UP Institute of Creative Writing and awarded Outstanding Son of Candon in the field of literature and journalism. He has written novels and short stories in comics form which were published in Bannawag, Bisaya, Yuhum, P.M. News, Balita ng Maynila, and various comics magazines. His many books include: Ankel Sam, S.O.B. (1991), Centerly, Manong (1986), Dagiti Asin Ti Lasag (The Salt of the Flesh, 1975), Sika Amin Dagitoy (You Are All of These, 1974), Lumahai (Offering, 1973), Bannawag: Saanen (Dawn No More, 1972) and Aloha Nui Loa (Aloha My Love, 1972).

9. Onefrecia Ipac Ibarra

Born on 21 July 1939 in Pacis, Sinait, Ilocos Sur. Onefrecia Ipac Ibarra has a BSEE (cum laude), M.A. in Education, and Ph.D. in Bilingual Education degrees, and received a number of scholarships given by both government and private agencies. She has served in various capacities as professor and faculty member of the Mariano Marcos State University, and became the first teacher of Ilokano literature to postgraduate students in the country. Her numerous short stories, essays, drama, and poems were published in Bannawag, Sirmata, Ani 7, Tobacco Farmers, Pluma, Siit, Talged, and GUMIL Sinait . She received the prestigious Leona Florentino award from GUMIL Filipinas on 27 April 2002, and retired as professor V from the MMSU College of Education in the same year.

10. Abdon M. Balde Jr.

 Bicol, Philippines

September 12, 1946

 

Abdon M. Balde, Jr. is an award-winning Filipino novelist. He has written and published short stories, poems and novels in English, Tagalog and the languages of Bicol.

Balde finished a degree in civil engineering and worked as a construction engineer for thirty-three years, after which he retired to pursue a career as an author. His writer career bloomed and critics noted his unique raw talent. He concentrated in writing creative short stories, poems and novels. He received his first literary award in 2003 and has since continued to win acclaim for his work.

Today, he is a councilor of the organization Lupon Sa Wika, a member of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and director of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas .Born on a military base in the Philippines, Lou Diamond Philips rose to fame with a series of hit films in the late 1980s, inlcuding La Bamba, Stand and Deliver, and Young Guns. After a few flops in the early 1990s, Philips earned a Tony nomination for his work in The King and I on Broadway. He continues to make television appearances,

Early Life

Actor. Lou Diamond Phillips was born February 17, 1962, on the Subic Bay Naval Station in the Philippines to Lucita Aranas and American naval officer Gerald Upchurch. The young actor was eventually adopted by his mother's second husband, taking his stepfather's surname Phillips. Though he was raised in small-town Texas, Lou Diamond Phillips had stars in his eyes from a young age. Passing up the opportunity to go to Yale, he instead chose to attend the local University of Texas at Arlington where he got his Bachelor's in Fine Arts degree in drama. He was active in drama club productions and a local comedy troupe. Eager to break out of the small town drama scene, Phillips capitalized on whatever opportunities came his way. The up-and-comer would often go to great lengths to meet idols (like Robert DeNiro) when they passed through nearby Dallas.

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