DANCE
Francisca Reyes Aquino Ramon Obusan
National Artist for Dance (1973)
(March 9, 1899 – November 21, 1983)
Francisca Reyes Aquino is acknowledged as the Folk
Dance Pioneer. This Bulakeña began her research on
folk dances in the 1920’s making trips to remote barrios
in Central and Northern Luzon. Her research on the
unrecorded forms of local celebration, ritual and sport
resulted into a 1926 thesis titled “Philippine Folk
Dances and Games,” and arranged specifically for use
by teachers and playground instructors in public and
private schools.
In the 1940’s, she served as supervisor of physical
education at the Bureau of Education that distributed her
work and adapted the teaching of folk dancing as a
medium of making young Filipinos aware of their cultural
heritage. In 1954, she received the Republic Award of
Merit given by the late Pres. Ramon Magsaysay for
“outstanding contribution toward the advancement of
Filipino culture”, one among the many awards and
recognition given to her.
Her books include the following: Philippine National
Dances (1946); Gymnastics for
Girls (1947); Fundamental Dance Steps and
Music (1948);Foreign Folk Dances (1949); Dances for
all Occasion (1950); Playground
Demonstration (1951); and Philippine Folk Dances,
Volumes I to VI.
National Artist for Dance (2006)  dance career that spanned over two decades, her
(June 16, 1938 – December 21, 2006)
Ramon Obusan was a *dancer, choreographer, stage
designer and artistic director. He achieved phenomenal
success in Philippine dance and cultural work. He was
also acknowledged as a researcher, archivist and
documentary filmmaker who broadened and deepened
the Filipino understanding of his own cultural life and
expressions. Through the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Grop
(ROFG), he had effected cultural and diplomatic
exchanges using the multifarious aspects and
dimensions of the art of dance.
Source: Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group 
Among the full-length productions he choreographed are
the following:
“Vamos a Belen! Series” (1998-2004) Philippine
Dances Tradition
“Noon Po sa Amin,” tableaux of Philippine History in
song, drama and dance
“Obra Maestra,” a collection of Ramon Obusan’s dance
masterpieces
“Unpublished Dances of the Philippines,” Series I-IV 
“Water, Fire and Life, Philippine Dances and Music–A
Celebration of Life
Saludo sa Sentenyal”
“Glimpses of ASEAN, Dances and Music of the
ASEAN-Member Countries”
“Saplot (Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group): Philippines
Costumes in Dance”
Alice Reyes
National Artist for Dance (2014)
The name Alice Reyes has become a significant part of
Philippine dance parlance. As a dancer, choreographer,
teacher and director, she has made a lasting impact on
the development and promotion of contemporary dance
in the Philippines. Her dance legacy is evident in the
dance companies, teachers, choreographers and the
exciting Filipino modern dance repertoire of our country
today.
Reyes’ dance training started at an early age with
classical ballet under the tutelage of Rosalia Merino
Santos. She subsequently trained in folk dance under
the Bayanihan Philippine National Dance Company and
pursued modern dance and jazz education and training
in the United States. Since then, during a professional
innovative artistic vision, firm leadership and passion for
dance have made a lasting mark on Philippine dance.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of Alice Reyes to
Philippine dance is the development of a distinctly
Filipino modern dance idiom. Utilizing inherently Filipino
materials and subject matters expressed through a
combination of movements and styles from Philippine
indigenous dance, modern dance and classical ballet
she has successfully created a contemporary dance
language that is uniquely Filipino. From her early
masterpiece Amada to the modern dance classic Itim-
Asu, to her last major work Bayanihan
Remembered which she staged for Ballet Philippines,
she utilized this idiom to promote unique facets of
Philippine arts, culture and heritage.
By introducing the first modern dance concert at the
CCP Main Theater in February 1970 featuring an all
contemporary dance repertoire and by promoting it
successfully to a wide audience, she initiated the
popularization of modern dance in the country. She
followed this up by programs that developed modern
dancers, teachers, choreographers and audiences. By
organizing outreach tours to many provinces, lecture-
demonstrations in schools, television promotions, a
subscription season and children’s matinee series, she
slowly helped build an audience base for Ballet
Philippines and modern dance in the country.
from audiences in their world tours in Americas, Europe,
Asia, Australia and Africa.
Among the widely acclaimed dances she had staged
were the following: Singkil, a Bayanihan signature
number based on a Maranao epic poem; Vinta, a dance
honoring Filipino sailing prowess; Tagabili, a tale of
tribal conflict; Pagdiwata, a four-day harvest festival
condensed into a six-minute breath-taking
spectacle; Salidsid, a mountain wedding dance ; Idaw,
Banga and Aires de Verbena.
LITERATURE

Among her major works: Amada (1969), At a Maranaw

Gathering (1970) Itim-Asu (1971), Tales of the
Manuvu(1977), Rama Hari (1980), Bayanihan
Remembered (1987). Francisco Arcellana Edith L. Tiempo Bienvenido Lumber

National Artist for Dance

(July 24, 1917 – July 15, 2005)

Dubbed the “Trailblazer”, “Mother of Philippine Theater

Dance” and “Dean of Filipino Performing Arts
Critics”, Leonor Orosa Goquingco, pioneer Filipino N.V.M. Gonzalez Virgilio S. Almario Cirilo F. Bautista
choreographer in balletic folkloric and Asian styles,
produced for over 50 years highly original, first-of-a-kind
choreographies, mostly to her own storylines. These
include “TREND: Return to Native,” “In a Javanese
Garden,” “Sports,” “VINTA!,” “In a Concentration
Camp,” “The Magic Garden,” “The Clowns,” “Firebird,”
“Noli Dance Suite,” “The Flagellant,” “The Creation…”
Seen as her most ambitious work is the dance epic Amado V.
Nick Joaquin Lazaro Francisco
“Filipinescas: Philippine Life, Legend and Lore.” With Hernandez
it, Orosa brought native folk dance, mirroring Philippine
culture from pagan to modern times, to its highest stage
of development.

She was the Honorary Chair of the Association of Ballet

Academies of the Philippines (ABAP), and was a
founding member of the Philippine Ballet Theater. F. Sionil Jose Carlos P. Romulo  Jose Garcia Villa

National Artist for Dance (1988)

(June 29, 1929 – August 4, 1999)

Lucrecia Reyes-Urtula, choreographer, dance educator

and researcher, spent almost four decades in the
discovery and study of Philippine folk and ethnic dances.
She applied her findings to project a new example of an
ethnic dance culture that goes beyond simple
preservation and into creative growth. Over a period of
thirty years, she had choreographed suites of mountain
dances, Spanish-influenced dances, Muslim pageants
and festivals, regional variations and dances of the
countryside for the Bayanihan Philippine Dance
Company of which she was the dance director. These
dances have all earned critical acclaim and rave reviews
Alejandro Roces  Rolando S. Tinio  Levi Celerio
National Artist for Literature (1990)
(September 6, 1916 – August 1, 2002)
Francisco Arcellana, writer, poet, essayist, critic,
journalist and teacher, is 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”. Arcellana kept alive the experimental
tradition in fiction, and had been most daring in exploring
new literary forms to express the sensibility of the
Filipino people. 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).
“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)
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, and his
poems being The Other Woman, This Being the Third
Poem This Poem is for Mathilda, To Touch You and I
Touched Her, among others.
National Artist for Literature (1999)
(April 22, 1919 – August 21, 2011)
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”.
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).
Bienvenido Lumbera
Literature (2006)
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.
National Artist for Literature (1997)
(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.
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 N.V.M Gonzalez include the
following: 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 Beyond: 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.
 National Artist for Literature (2003)
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. 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.
He has also redefined how the Filipino poetry is viewed
and paved the way for the discussion of the same in his
10 books of criticisms and anthologies, among which
are Ang Makata sa Panahon ng
Makina, Balagtasismo versus
Modernismo,Walong Dekada ng Makabagong Tula
Pilipino, Mutyang Dilim and Barlaan at Josaphat.
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. 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).
He headed the National Commission for Culture and the
Arts as Executive Director, (from 1998 to 2001) ably
steering the Commission towards its goals.
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.
National Artist for Literature (2014)
Cirilo F. Bautista is a poet, fictionist and essayist with
exceptional achievements and significant contributions
to the development of the country’s literary arts. He is
acknowledged by peers and critics, and the nation at
large as the foremost writer of his generation.
Throughout his career that spans more than four
decades, he has established a reputation for fine and
profound artistry; his books, lectures, poetry readings
and creative writing workshops continue to influence his
peers and generations of young writers.
As a way of bringing poetry and fiction closer to the
people who otherwise would not have the opportunity to
develop their creative talent, Bautista has been holding
regular funded and unfunded workshops throughout the
country. In his campus lecture circuits, Bautista has
updated students and student-writers on literary
developments and techniques.
As a teacher of literature, Bautista has realized that the
classroom is an important training ground for Filipino
writers. In De La Salle University, he was instrumental in
the formation of the Bienvenido Santos Creative Writing
Center. He was also the moving spirit behind the
founding of the Philippine Literary Arts Council in 1981,
the Iligan National Writers Workshop in 1993, and the
Baguio Writers Group.
Thus, Bautista continues to contribute to the
development of Philippine literature: as a writer, through
his significant body of works; as a teacher, through his
discovery and encouragement of young writers in
workshops and lectures; and as a critic, through his
essays that provide insights into the craft of writing and
correctives to misconceptions about art.
Major works: Summer Suns (1963), Words and
Battlefields (1998), The Trilogy of Saint
Lazarus (2001), Galaw ng Asoge (2003).
National Artist for Literature (1976)
(May 4, 1917 – April 29, 2004)
“Before 1521 we could have been anything and
everything not Filipino; after 1565 we can be nothing but
Filipino.” ― Culture and History, 1988
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.
Nick Joaquin died April 29, 2004.
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.
National Artist for Literature (2009)
(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. Amadis Ma. Guerrero wrote, “Francisco
championed the cause of the common man, specifically
the oppressed peasants. His novels exposed the evils of
the tenancy system, the exploitation of farmers by
unscrupulous landlords, and foreign domination.”
Teodoro Valencia also observed, “His pen dignifies the
Filipino and accents all the positives about the Filipino
way of life. His writings have contributed much to the
formation of a Filipino nationalism.” Literary historian and
critic Bienvenido Lumbera also wrote, “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. 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. His
masterpiece novels—Ama, Bayang
Nagpatiwakal, Maganda Pa Ang
Daigdig and Daluyong—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.”
National Artist for Literature (2001)
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.
National Artist for Literature (1982)
(January 14, 1899 – December 15, 1985)
Carlos P. Romulo‘s 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. 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).
His other books include his memoirs of his many years’
affiliations with United Nations (UN), Forty Years: A
Third World Soldier at the UN, and The Philippine
Presidents, his oral history of his experiences serving
all the Philippine presidents.
National Artist for Literature (1973)
(August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997)
“Art is a miraculous flirtation with Nothing!
Aiming for nothing, and landing on the Sun.” 
―  Doveglion: Collected Poems
Jose Garcia Villa is considered as one of the finest
contemporary poets regardless of race or language.
Villa, who lived in Singalong, Manila, introduced the
reversed consonance rime scheme, including the
comma poems that made full use of the punctuation
mark in an innovative, poetic way. 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. He used Doveglion (Dove, Eagle,
Lion) as pen name, the very characters he attributed to
himself, and the same ones explored by e.e. cummings
in the poem he wrote for Villa (Doveglion, Adventures in
Value). Villa is also known for the tartness of his tongue.
Villa’s works have been collected into the following
books: Footnote to Youth,Many Voices, Poems by
Doveglion, Poems 55, Poems in Praise of Love: The
Best Love Poems of Jose Garcia Villa as Chosen By
Himself, Selected Stories,The Portable Villa, The
Essential Villa, Mir-i-nisa, Storymasters 3: Selected
Stories from Footnote to Youth, 55 Poems: Selected
and Translated into Tagalog by Hilario S. Francia.
National Artist for Literature (2003)
(July 13, 1924 – May 23, 2011)
“You cannot be a great writer; first, you have to be a
good person”
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.
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.
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.
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 folksongs and dances that led to its popularization.
local movies, which earned for him the Lifetime Buenaventura composed songs, compositions, for solo
Achievement Award from the Film Academy of the instruments as well as symphonic and orchestral works
Philippines. Levi Celerio, more importantly, has enriched based on the folksongs of various Philippine ethnic
the Philippine music for no less than two generations groups. He was also a conductor and restored the
with a treasury of more than 4,000 songs in an idiom that Philippine Army Band to its former prestige as one of the
has proven to appeal to all social classes. finest military bands in the world making it “the only band
that can sound like a symphony orchestra”.
MUSIC
This once sickly boy who played the clarinet proficiently
has written several marches such as the “Triumphal
March,” “Echoes of the Past,” “History
Fantasy,” Second Symphony in E-flat, “Echoes from
the Philippines,” “Ode to Freedom.” His orchestral
music compositions include Concert Overture, Prelude
and Fugue in G Minor, Philippines Triumphant,
Antonino Buenaventura Jose Maceda Lucrecia R. Kasilag
Mindanao Sketches, Symphony in C Major, among
others.

National Artist for Music (1997)

(January 31, 1917 – May 5, 2004)

Jose Maceda, composer, musicologist, teacher and

Ernani J. Cuenco Lucio San Pedro Antonio J. Molinaperformer, explored the musicality of the Filipino deeply.
Maceda embarked on a life-long dedication to the
understanding and popularization of Filipino traditional
music. Maceda’s researches and fieldwork have resulted
in the collection of an immense number of recorded
music taken from the remotest mountain villages and
farthest island communities. He wrote papers that
enlightened scholars, both Filipino and foreign, about the
Francisco Feliciano Levi Celerio Ramon P. Santos nature of Philippine traditional and ethnic music.
Maceda’s experimentation also freed Filipino musical
expression from a strictly Eurocentric mold.

Usually performed as a communal ritual, his

compositions like Ugma-
ugma(1963), Pagsamba (1968), and Udlot-
udlot (1975), are monuments to his unflagging
Felipe Padilla de
Jovita Fuentes Andrea Veneracion
commitment to Philippine music. Other major works
Leon
include Agungan, Kubing, Pagsamba, Ugnayan,
Ading, Aroding, Siasid, Suling-suling.

National Artist for Music (1989)

(August 31, 1918 – August 16, 2008)

Lucrecia R. Kasilag, an educator, composer,

 Honorata “Atang” dela
Rama
National Artist for Music (1988)
(May 4, 1904 – January 25, 1996)
Antonino R. Buenaventura vigorously pursued a
musical career that spanned seven decades of
unwavering commitment to advancing the frontiers of
Philippine music. In 1935, Buenaventura joined
Francisca Reyes-Aquino to conduct research on
performing artist, administrator and cultural entrepreneur
of national and international caliber, had involved herself
wholly in sharpening the Filipino audience’s appreciation
of music. Kasilag’s pioneering task to discover the
Filipino roots through ethnic music and fusing it with
Western influences has led many Filipino composers to
experiment with such an approach. She dared to
incorporate indigenous Filipino instruments in orchestral
productions, such as the prize-winning “Toccata for
Percussions and Winds, Divertissement and
Concertante,” and the scores of the Filiasiana, Misang
Pilipino, and De Profundis. “Tita King”, as she was
fondly called, worked closely as music director with
colleagues Lucresia Reyes-Urtula, Isabel Santos, Jose
Lardizabal and Dr. Leticia P. de Guzman and made
Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company one of the
premier artistic and cultural groups in the country.
Her orchestral music includes Love Songs, Legend of
the Sarimanok, Ang Pamana, Philippine Scenes, Her
Son, Jose, Sisa and chamber music like Awit ng mga
Awit Psalms, Fantaisie on a 4-Note Theme, and East
Meets Jazz Ethnika.
National Artist for Music (1999)
(May 10, 1936 – June 11, 1988)
Ernani J. Cuenco is a seasoned musician born in May
10, 1936 in Malolos, Bulacan. A composer, film scorer,
musical director and music teacher, he wrote an
outstanding and memorable body of works that resonate
with the Filipino sense of musicality and which embody
an ingenious voice that raises the aesthetic dimensions
of contemporary Filipino music. Cuenco played with the
Filipino Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Manila
Symphony Orchestra from 1960 to 1968, and the Manila
Chamber Soloists from 1966 to 1970. He completed a
music degree in piano and cello from the University of
Santo Tomas where he also taught for decades until his
death in 1988.
His songs and ballads include “Nahan, Kahit na
Magtiis,” and “Diligin Mo ng Hamog ang Uhaw na
Lupa,” “Pilipinas,” “Inang Bayan,” “Isang Dalangin,”
“Kalesa,” “Bato sa Buhangin” and “Gaano Kita
Kamahal.” The latter song shows how Cuenco has
enriched the Filipino love ballad by adding the elements
of kundiman to it.
National Artist for Music (1991)
(February 11, 1913 – March 31, 2002)
Lucio San Pedro is a master composer, conductor, and
teacher whose music evokes the folk elements of the
Filipino heritage. Cousin to “Botong” Francisco, San
Pedro produced a wide-ranging body of works that
includes band music, concertos for violin and orchestra,
choral works, cantatas, chamber music, music for violin
and piano, and songs for solo voice. He was the
conductor of the much acclaimed Peng Kong Grand
Mason Concert Band, the San Pedro Band of Angono,
his father’s former band, and the Banda Angono Numero
Uno. His civic commitment and work with town bands
have significantly contributed to the development of a
civic culture among Filipino communities and opened a
creative outlet for young Filipinos.
His orchestral music include The Devil’s
Bridge, Malakas at Maganda Overture,Prelude and
Fugue in D minor, Hope and Ambition; choral
music Easter Cantata, Sa Mahal Kong Bayan, Rizal’s
Valedictory Poem; vocal music Lulay,Sa Ugoy ng
Duyan, In the Silence of the Night; and band
music Dance of the Fairies, Triumphal March, Lahing
Kayumanggi, Angononian March among others.
National Artist for Music (1973)
(December 26, 1894 – January 29, 1980)
Antonio J. Molina, versatile musician, composer, music
educator was the last of the musical triumvirate, two of
whom were Nicanor Abelardo and Francisco Santiago,
who elevated music beyond the realm of folk music. At
an early age, he took to playing the violoncello and
played it so well it did not take long before he was
playing as orchestra soloist for the Manila Grand Opera
House. Molina is credited with introducing such
innovations as the whole tone scale, pentatonic scale,
exuberance of dominant ninths and eleventh cords, and
linear counterpoints. As a member of the faculty of the
UP Conservatory, he had taught many of the country’s
leading musical personalities and educators like
Lucresia Kasilag and Felipe de Leon.
Molina’s most familiar composition is Hatinggabi, a
serenade for solo violin and piano accompaniment.
Other works are (orchestral music) Misa Antoniana
Grand Festival Mass, Ang Batingaw, Kundiman-
Kundangan; (chamber music) Hating Gabi, String
Quartet, Kung sa Iyong Gunita, Pandangguhan;
(vocal music) Amihan, Awit ni Maria Clara, Larawan
Nitong Pilipinas, among others.
Francisco Feliciano
National Artist for Music (2014)
Francisco Feliciano’s corpus of creative work attests to
the exceptional talent of the Filipino as an artist. His
lifetime conscientiousness in bringing out the
“Asianness” in his music, whether as a composer,
conductor, or educator, contributed to bringing the
awareness of people all over the world to view the Asian
culture as a rich source of inspiration and a celebration
of our ethnicity, particularly the Philippines. He brought
out the unique sounds of our indigenous music in
compositions that have high technical demands equal to
the compositions of masters in the western world. By his
numerous creative outputs, he has elevated the Filipino
artistry into one that is highly esteemed by the people all
over the world.
Many of his choral compositions have been performed
by the best choirs in the country, such as the world-
renowned Philippines Madrigal Singers, UST Singers,
and the Novo Concertante Manila, and have won for
them numerous awards in international choral
competitions. The technical requirement of his choral
pieces is almost at the tip of the scale that many who
listen to their rendition are awed, especially because he
incorporates the many subtleties of rhythmic vitality and
intricate interweaving of lines inspired from the songs of
our indigenous tribes. He not only borrows these musical
lines, albeit he quotes them and transforms them into
completely energetic fusions of sound and culture that
does nothing less than celebrate our various ethnicities.
His operas and orchestral works also showcase the
masterful treatment of a musical language that is unique
and carries with it a contemporary style that allows for
the use of modal scales, Feliciano’s preferred tonality.
The influence of bringing out the indigenous culture,
particularly in sound, is strongly evident in La Loba
Negra, Ashen Wings, and Yerma. In his modest hymns,
Feliciano was able to bring out the Filipino mysticism in
the simple harmonies that is able to captivate and charm
his audiences. It is his matchless genius in choosing to
state his ideas in their simplest state but producing a
haunting and long-lasting impact on the listening soul
that makes his music extraordinarily sublime.
Major Works: Ashen Wings (1995), Sikhay sa Kabila ng
Paalam (1993), La Loba Negra (1983), Yerma (1982),
Pamugun (1995), Pokpok Alimako (1981)
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.
National Artist for Music (2014)
Ramon Pagayon Santos, composer, conductor and
musicologist, is currently the country’s foremost
exponent of contemporary Filipino music. A prime figure
in the second generation of Filipino composers in the
modern idiom, Santos has contributed greatly to the
quest for new directions in music, taking as basis non-
Western traditions in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
He graduated in 1965 from the UP College of Music with
a Teacher’s Diploma and a Bachelor of Music degree in
both Composition and Conducting. Higher studies in the
United States under a Fulbright Scholarship at Indiana
University (for a Master’s degree, 1968) and at the State
University of New York at Buffalo (for a Doctorate, 1972)
exposed him to the world of contemporary and avant-
garde musical idioms: the rigorous processes of
serialism, electronic and contemporary music,
indeterminacy, and new vocal and improvisational
techniques. He received further training in New Music in
Darmstadt, Germany and in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
His initial interest in Mahler and Debussy while still a
student at UP waned as his compositional style shifted
to Neo Classicism and finally to a distinct merging of the
varied influences that he had assimilated abroad.
His return to the Philippines marked a new path in his
style. After immersing himself in indigenous Philippine
and Asian (Javanese music and dance, Chinese nan
kuan music), he became more interested in open-ended
structures of time and space, function as a compositional
concept, environmental works, non-conventional
instruments, the dialectics of control and non-control,
and the incorporation of natural forces in the execution
of sound-creating tasks. All these would lead to the
forging of a new alternative musical language founded
on a profound understanding and a thriving and sensitive
awareness of Asian music aesthetics and culture.
Simultaneous with this was a reverting back to more
orthodox performance modes: chamber works and
multimedia works for dance and
theatre. Panaghoy (1984), for reader, voices, gongs and
bass drum, on the poetry of Benigno Aquino, Jr. was a
powerful musical discourse on the fallen leader’s
assassination in 1983, which subsequently brought on
the victorious People Power uprising in 1986.
An active musicologist, Santos’ interest in traditional
music cultures was heretofore realized in 1976 by
embarking on fieldwork to collect and document music
from folk religious groups in Quezon. He has also done
research and fieldwork among the Ibaloi of Northern
Luzon. His ethnomusicological orientation has but richly
enhanced his compositional outlook. Embedded in the
works of this period are the people-specific concepts
central to the ethnomusicological discipline, the
translation of indigenous musical systems into modern
musical discourse, and the marriage of Western and
non-Western sound.
An intense and avid pedagogue, Santos, as Chair of the
Department of Compositiion and Theory (and formerly,
as Dean) of the College of Music, UP, has remained
instrumental in espousing a modern Philippine music
rooted in old Asian practices and life concepts. With
generation upon generation of students and teachers
that have come under his wing, he continues to shape a
legacy of modernity anchored on the values of traditional
Asian music.
 National Artist for Music (1976)
(February 15, 1895 – August 7, 1978)
Long before Lea Salonga’s break into Broadway, there
was already Jovita Fuentes‘ portrayal of Cio-cio san in
Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at Italy’s Teatro
Municipale di Piacenza. Her performance was hailed as
the “most sublime interpretation of the part”. This is all
the more significant because it happened at a time when
the Philippines and its people were scarcely heard of in
Europe. Prior to that, she was teaching at the University
of the Philippines Conservatory of Music (1917) before
leaving for Milan in 1924 for further voice studies. After
eight months of arduous training, she made her stage
debut at the Piacenza. She later embarked on a string of
music performances in Europe essaying the roles of Liu
Yu in Puccini’s Turandot, Mimi in Puccini’s La
Boheme, Iris in Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, the title role
of Salome (which composer Richard Strauss personally
offered to her including the special role of Princess Yang
Gui Fe in Li Tai Pe). In recognition of these
achievements, she was given the unprecedented award
of “Embahadora de Filipinas a su Madre Patria” by
Spain.
Her dream to develop the love for opera among her
countrymen led her to found the Artists’ Guild of the
Philippines, which was responsible for the periodic “Tour
of Operaland” productions. Her life story has been
documented in the biography Jovita Fuentes: A
Lifetime of Music (1978) written by Lilia H. Chung, and
later translated into Filipino by Virgilio Almario.
National Artist for Music (1997)
(May 1, 1912 – December 5, 1992)
Felipe Padilla de Leon, composer, conductor, and
scholar, Filipinized western music forms, a feat aspired
for by Filipino composers who preceded him. The
prodigious body of De Leon’s musical compositions,
notably the sonatas, marches, and concertos have
become the full expression of the sentiments and
aspirations of the Filipino in times of strife and of peace,
making him the epitome of a people’s musician. He is
the recipient of various awards and distinctions: Republic
Cultural Heritage Award, Doctor of Humanities from UP,
Rizal Pro-Patria Award, Presidential Award of Merit,
Patnubay ng Kalinangan Award, among others.
De Leon’s orchestral music include Mariang Makiling
Overture (1939), Roca Encantada, symphonic legend
(1950), Maynila
Overture (1976), Orchesterstuk(1981); choral music
like Payapang Daigdig, Ako’y Pilipino, Lupang
Tinubuan, Ama Namin; and
songs Bulaklak, Alitaptap, and Mutya ng Lahi.
National Artist for Music (1999)
(July 11, 1928 – July 9, 2013)
Andrea Veneracion, is highly esteemed for her
achievements as choirmaster and choral arranger. Two
of her indispensable contributions in culture and the arts
include the founding of the Philippine Madrigal Singers
and the spearheading of the development of Philippine
choral music. A former faculty member of the UP
College of Music and honorary chair of the Philippine
Federation of Choral Music, she also organized a
cultural outreach program to provide music education
and exposure in several provinces. Born in Manila on
July 11, 1928, she is recognized as an authority on
choral music and performance and has served as
adjudicator in international music competitions.
National Artist for Theater and Music (1987)
(January 11, 1902 – July 11, 1991)
Honorata “Atang” Dela Rama was formally honored as
the Queen of Kundiman in 1979, then already 74 years
old singing the same song (“Nabasag na Banga”) that
she sang as a 15-year old girl in the sarsuela Dalagang
Bukid. Atang became the very first actress in the very
first locally produced Filipino film when she essayed the
same role in the sarsuela’s film version. As early as age
seven, Atang was already being cast in Spanish
zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueño de un Vals,
and Marina. She counts the role though of an orphan
in Pangarap ni Rosa as her most rewarding and
satisfying role that she played with realism, the stage
sparkling with silver coins tossed by a teary-eyed
audience. Atang firmly believes that the sarswela and
the kundiman expresses best the Filipino soul, and has
even performed kundiman and other Filipino songs for
the Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the Sierra Madre,
the Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of Mindanao.
Atang firmly believes that the sarswela and the
kundiman expresses best the Filipino soul, and had even
performed kundiman and other Filipino songs for the
Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the Sierra Madre, the
Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of Mindanao.
Among the kundiman and the other songs she
premiered or popularized were Pakiusap, Ay, Ay
Kalisud, Kung Iibig Ka and Madaling Araw by Jose
Corazon de Jesus, and Mutya ng Pasig by Deogracias
Rosario and Nicanor Abelardo. She also wrote her own
sarswelas: Anak ni Eba, Aking Ina, and Puri at Buhay.
THEATER
Daisy Avellana Rolando S. Tinio Wilfrido Ma. Gue
 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
Honorata “Atang” dela
Salvador F. Bernal Severino Montano
Puri and Milagros; sarswelas Ang Mestisa, Ako, Ang
Rama
Kiri, Ana Maria; the komedya Orosman at Zafira;
and Larawan, the musical.

National Artist for Theater (1997)

(January 22, 1910 – April 28, 1995)

Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero is a teacher and theater artist

 Lamberto V. Avellana
National Artist for Theater (1999)
(January 26, 1917 – May 12, 2013)
Daisy H. Avellana, is an actor, director and writer. Born
in Roxas City, Capiz on January 26, 1917, she elevated
legitimate theater and dramatic arts to a new level of
excellence by staging and performing in breakthrough
productions of classic Filipino and foreign plays and by
encouraging the establishment of performing groups and
the professionalization of Filipino theater. Together with
her husband, National Artist Lamberto Avellana and
other artists, she co-founded the Barangay Theatre
Guild in 1939 which paved the way for the popularization
of theatre and dramatic arts in the country, utilizing radio
and television.
She starred in plays like Othello (1953), Macbeth in
Black (1959), Casa de Bernarda Alba (1967), Tatarin.
She is best remembered for her portrayal of Candida
Marasigan in the stage and film versions of Nick
Joaquin’s Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. Her
directorial credits include Diego Silang (1968),
and Walang Sugat (1971). Among her screenplays
were Sakay (1939) and Portrait of the Artist as
Filipino (1955).
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
whose 35 years of devoted professorship has produced
the most sterling luminaries in Philippine performing arts
today: Behn Cervantes, Celia Diaz-Laurel, Joy Virata,
Joonee Gamboa, etc. In 1947, he was appointed as UP
Dramatic Club director and served for 16 years. As
founder and artistic director of the UP Mobile Theater, he
pioneered the concept of theater campus tour and
delivered no less than 2,500 performances in a span of
19 committed years of service. By bringing theatre to the
countryside, Guerrero made it possible for students and
audiences, in general, to experience the basic grammar
of staging and acting in familiar and friendly ways
through his plays that humorously reflect the behavior of
the Filipino.
His plays include Half an Hour in a Convent, Wanted:
A Chaperon, Forever, Condemned, Perhaps, In
Unity, Deep in My Heart, Three Rats, Our Strange
Ways, The Forsaken House, Frustrations.
National Artist for Theater and Music (1987)
(January 11, 1902 – July 11, 1991)
Honorata “Atang” Dela Rama was formally honored as
the Queen of Kundiman in 1979, then already 74 years
old singing the same song (“Nabasag na Banga”) that
she sang as a 15-year old girl in the sarsuela Dalagang
Bukid. Atang became the very first actress in the very
first locally produced Filipino film when she essayed the
same role in the sarsuela’s film version. As early as age
seven, Atang was already being cast in Spanish
zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueño de un Vals,
and Marina. She counts the role though of an orphan
in Pangarap ni Rosa as her most rewarding and
satisfying role that she played with realism, the stage
sparkling with silver coins tossed by a teary-eyed
audience. Atang firmly believes that the sarswela and
the kundiman expresses best the Filipino soul, and has
even performed kundiman and other Filipino songs for
the Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the Sierra Madre,
the Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of Mindanao.
Atang firmly believes that the sarswela and the
kundiman expresses best the Filipino soul, and had even
performed kundiman and other Filipino songs for the
Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the Sierra Madre, the
Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of Mindanao.
Among the kundiman and the other song she premiered
or popularized were Pakiusap, Ay, Ay Kalisud, Kung
Iibig Ka and Madaling Araw by Jose Corazon de
Jesus, and Mutya ng Pasig by Deogracias Rosario and
Nicanor Abelardo. She also wrote her own
sarswelas: Anak ni Eba, Aking Ina, and Puri at Buhay.
National Artist for Theater (2001)
(January 3, 1915 – December 12, 1980)
career in film that would be capped by such distinctive
achievements as the Grand Prix at the Asian Film
Festival in Hong Kong for Anak Dalita (1956); Best
Director of Asia award in Tokyo for Badjao, among
others.
Avellana was also the first filmmaker to have his
film Kandelerong Pilak shown at the Cannes
International Film Festival. Among the films he directed
for worldwide release were Sergeant
Hasan (1967), Destination Vietnam(1969), and The
Evil Within (1970).

Playwright, director, actor, and theater VISUAL ARTS

organizer Severino Montano is the forerunner in
institutionalizing “legitimate theater” in the Philippines.
Taking up courses and graduate degrees abroad, he
honed and shared his expertise with his countrymates.

As Dean of Instruction of the Philippine Normal College,

Montano organized the Arena Theater to bring drama to Fernando Amorsolo Hernando R. Ocampo Benedicto Cabr
the masses. He trained and directed the new
generations of dramatists including Rolando S. Tinio,
Emmanuel Borlaza, Joonee Gamboa, and Behn
Cervantes.

He established a graduate program at the Philippine

Normal College for the training of playwrights, directors,
technicians, actors, and designers. He also established Carlos
Cesar Legaspi Abdulmari Asia
the Arena Theater Playwriting Contest that led to the “Botong” Francisco
discovery of Wilfrido Nolledo, Jesus T. Peralta, and
Estrella Alfon.

Among his awards and recognitions are the Patnubay ng

Kalinangan Award from the City of Manila (1968),
Presidential Award for Merit in Drama and Theater
(1961), and the Rockefeller Foundation Grant to travel to
Guillermo E.
98 cities abroad (1950, 1952, 1962, and 1963). Arturo Luz Federico Aguila
Tolentino

National Artist for Theater and Film (1976)

Lamberto V. Avellana, director for theater and film, has

the distinction of being called “The Boy Wonder of
Philippine Movies” as early as 1939. He was the first to
use the motion picture camera to establish a point-of-
view, a move that revolutionized the techniques of film Napoleon V. Abueva J. Elizalde Navarro Francisco Coch
narration. Avellana, who at 20 portrayed Joan of Arc in
time for Ateneo’s diamond jubilee, initially set out to
establish a Filipino theater. Together with Daisy
Hontiveros, star of many UP plays and his future wife, he
formed the Barangay Theater Guild which had, among
others, Leon Ma. Guerrero and Raul Manglapus as
members. It was after seeing such plays that Carlos P.
Victorio C. Edades Ang Kiukok Jose T. Joya
Romulo, then president of Philippine Films, encouraged
him to try his hand at directing films. In his first
film Sakay, Avellana demonstrated a kind of visual
rhythm that established a new filmic language.

Sakay was declared the best picture of 1939 by critics

and journalists alike and set the tone for Avellana’s
Vicente Manansala
The country had its first National Artist in Fernando C.
Amorsolo. The official title “Grand Old Man of Philippine
Art” was bestowed on Amorsolo when the Manila Hilton
inaugurated its art center on January 23, 1969 with an
exhibit of a selection of his works. Returning from his
studies abroad in the 1920s, Amorsolo developed the
backlighting technique that became his trademark where
figures, a cluster of leaves, spill of hair, the swell of
breast, are seen aglow on canvas. This light, Nick
Joaquin opines, is the rapture of a sensualist utterly in
love with the earth, with the Philippine sun, and is an
accurate expression of Amorsolo’s own exuberance. His
citation underscores all his years of creative activity
which have “defined and perpetuated a distinct element
of the nation’s artistic and cultural heritage”.
Among others, his major works include the
following: Maiden in a Stream(1921)-GSIS collection; El
Ciego (1928)-Central Bank of the Philippines
collection; Dalagang Bukid (1936) – Club Filipino
collection; The Mestiza (1943) – National Museum of
the Philippines collection; Planting Rice (1946)-UCPB
collection; Sunday Morning Going to Town (1958)-
Ayala Museum Collection.
National Artist for Visual Arts (1991)
(April 28, 1911 – December 28, 1978)
Hernando R. Ocampo, a self-taught painter, was a
leading member of the pre-war Thirteen Moderns, the
group that charted the course of modern art in the
Philippines. His works provided an understanding and
awareness of the harsh social realities in the country
immediately after the Second World War and contributed
significantly to the rise of the nationalist spirit in the post-
war era. It was, however, his abstract works that left an
indelible mark on Philippine modern art. His canvases
evoked the lush Philippine landscape, its flora and
fauna, under the sun and rain in fierce and bold colors.
He also played a pivotal role in sustaining the Philippine
Art Gallery, the country’s first.
Genesis. 1969
Ocampo’s acknowledged masterpiece Genesis served
as the basis of the curtain design of the Cultural Center
of the Philippines Main Theater. His other major works
include Ina ng Balon, Calvary, Slum Dwellers, Nude
with Candle and Flower, Man and Carabao, Angel’s
Kiss, Palayok at Kalan, Ancestors,Isda at
Mangga, The Resurrection, Fifty-three
“Q” Backdrop, Fiesta.
National Artist for Visual Arts (2006)
Benedicto R. Cabrera, who signs his paintings
“Bencab,” upheld the primacy of drawing over the
decorative color. Bencab started his career in the mid-
sixties as a lyrical expressionist. His solitary figures of
scavengers emerging from a dark landscape were
piercing stabs at the social conscience of a people long
inured to poverty and dereliction. Bencab, who was born
in Malabon, has christened the emblematic scavenger
figure “Sabel.” For Bencab, Sabel is a melancholic
symbol of dislocation, despair and isolation–the
personification of human dignity threatened by life’s
vicissitudes, and the vast inequities of Philippine
society.*
Bencab’s exploration of form, finding his way out of the
late neo-realism and high abstraction of the sixties to be
able to reconsider the potency of figurative expression
had held out vital options for Philippine art in the Martial
Law years in the seventies through the contemporary
era.
*from the citation
Selected works
Madonna with Objects, 1991
Studies of Sabel, dyptych, 1991
People Waiting, 1989
The Indifference, 1988
Waiting for the Monsoon, 1986
National Artist for Painting (1973)
(November 4, 1912 – March 31, 1969)
Carlos “Botong” Francisco, the poet of Angono,
single-handedly revived the forgotten art of mural and
remained its most distinguished practitioner for nearly
three decades. In panels such as those that grace the
City Hall of Manila, Francisco turned fragments of the
historic past into vivid records of the legendary courage
of the ancestors of his race. He was invariably linked
with the “modernist” artists, forming with Victorio C.
Edades and Galo Ocampo what was then known in the
local art circles as “The Triumvirate”. Botong’s unerring
eye for composition, the lush tropical sense of color and
an abiding faith in the folk values typified by the
townspeople of Angono became the hallmark of his art.

Harana, 1957 (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Collection)
His other major works include the following: Portrait of
Purita, The Invasion of Limahong, Serenade, Muslim
Betrothal, Blood Compact, First Mass at
Limasawa, The Martyrdom of
Rizal, Bayanihan, Magpupukot, Fiesta, Bayanihan sa
Bukid, Sandugo.
National Artist for Visual Arts (1990)
(April 2, 1917 – April 7, 1994)
A pioneer “Neo-Realist” of the country, Cesar Legaspi is
remembered for his singular achievement of refining
cubism in the Philippine context. Legaspi belonged to
the so-called “Thirteen Moderns” and later, the “Neo-
realists”. His distinctive style and daring themes
contributed significantly to the advent and eventual
acceptance of modern art in the Philippines. Legaspi
made use of the geometric fragmentation technique,
weaving social comment and juxtaposing the mythical
and modern into his overlapping, interacting forms with
disturbing power and intensity.
Among his works are Gadgets I, Gadgets
II, Diggers, Idols of the Third
Eye, Facade, Ovary, Flora and
Fauna, Triptych, Flight, Bayanihan, Struggle,Avengin
g Figure, Turning Point, Peace, The Survivor, The
Ritual.
National Artist for Visual Arts (2006)
(January 14, 1936 – December 16, 2014)
Abdulmari Asia Imao, a native of Sulu, is a sculptor,
painter, photographer, ceramist, documentary film
maker, cultural researcher, writer, and articulator of
Philippine Muslim art and culture.
Through his works, the indigenous ukkil, sarimanok and
naga motifs have been popularized and instilled in the
consciousness of the Filipino nation and other peoples
as original Filipino creations.
His U.P. art education introduced him to Filipino masters
like Guillermo Tolentino and Napoleon Abueva, who
were among his mentors.
With his large-scale sculptures and monuments of
Muslim and regional heroes and leaders gracing
selected sites from Batanes to Tawi-tawi, Imao has
helped develop among cultural groups trust and
confidence necessary for the building of a more just and
humane society.
Selected works:
Industry Brass Mural, Philippine National Bank, San
Fernando, La Union
Mural Relief on Filmmaking, Manila City Hall
Industrial Mural, Central Bank of the Philippines, San
Fernando, La Union
Sulu Warriors (statues of Panglima Unaid and Captain
Abdurahim Imao), 6 ft., Sulu Provincial Capitol
National Artist for Sculpture (1973)
(July 24, 1890 – July 12, 1976)
Guillermo Estrella Tolentino is a product of the Revival
period in Philippine art. Returning from Europe (where
he was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts,
Rome) in 1925, he was appointed as professor at the UP
School of Fine Arts where the idea also of executing a
monument for national heroes struck him. The result was
the UP Oblation that became the symbol of freedom at
the campus. Acknowledged as his masterpiece and
completed in 1933, The Bonifacio Monument in
Caloocan stands as an enduring symbol of the Filipinos’
cry for freedom.
 Bonifacio Monument (Image credit: Ramon Velasquez
via Wikimedia Commons)
Other works include the bronze figures of President
Quezon at Quezon Memorial, life-size busts of Jose
Rizal at UP and UE, marble statue of Ramon
Magsaysay in GSIS Building; granolithics of heroic
statues representing education, medicine, forestry,
veterinary science, fine arts and music at UP.
He also designed the gold and bronze medals for
the Ramon Magsaysay Award and did the seal of
the Republic of the Philippines.
National Artist for Visual Arts (1997)
Arturo Luz, painter, sculptor, and designer for more
than 40 years, created masterpieces that exemplify an
ideal of sublime austerity in expression and form. From
the Carnival series of the late 1950s to the recent Cyclist
paintings, Luz produced works that elevated Filipino
aesthetic vision to new heights of sophisticated
simplicity. By establishing the Luz Gallery that
professionalized the art gallery as an institution and set a
prestigious influence over generations of Filipino artists,
Luz inspired and developed a Filipino artistic community
that nurtures impeccable designs.
Night Glows, 1960
Among his other significant paintings are Bagong
Taon, Vendador de Flores, Skipping Rope, Candle
Vendors, Procession, Self-Portrait, Night
Glows,Grand Finale, Cities of the Past, Imaginary
Landscapes. His mural painting Black and White is
displayed in the lobby of the CCP’s Bulwagang Carlos V.
Francisco (Little Theater). His sculpture of a stainless
steel cube is located in front of the Benguet Mining
Corporation Building in Pasig.
Federico Aguilar y Alcuaz
National Artist for Visual Arts (2009)
Federico Aguilar y Alcuaz, who signed his works as
Aguilar Alcuaz was an artist of voluminous output. He is
known mainly for his gestural paintings in acrylic and oil,
as well as sketches in ink, watercolor and pencil. He was
also a sculptor of note and has rendered abstract and
figurative works in ceramics, tapestries and even in relief
sculptures made of paper and mixed media, which he
simply calls “Alcuazaics.” The preference to use his
maternal name was more for practical reasons; Alcuaz
was rarer than the name Aguilar, and thus ensured
better recall; it was also simpler to drop the customary y
between the two names.
Alcuaz belongs to the second generation of Filipino
modernists after the fabled Thirteen Moderns, credited
along with Jose Joya, Constancio Bernardo, Fernando
Zobel and Arturo Luz, for building a significant body of
abstract art from the arguably more tentative efforts of
their predecessors. Alcuaz went to the UP College of
Fine Arts in Diliman while also taking up his pre-law
course at San Beda College. Napoleon Abueva, Jose
Joya and Juvenal Sanso were also in school with him at
that time, studying under Fernando Amorsolo, Guillermo
Tolentino, Irineo Miranda, Constancio Bernardo and
Toribio Herrera. He would go on to win prizes at UP and
at the national Shell Art competition, and embarked on
several solo exhibits after graduating from San Beda
Alcuaz would go on in 1955 to obtain a law degree at the
Ateneo de Manila in Padre Faura, Manila in deference to
his father’s wishes, but after mounting an exhibit at the
legendary Philippine Art Gallery, he received a
fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Spain
and proceeded to study at the Academia de Bellas Artes
de San Fernando in Madrid, where other Filipino
expatriates like Juan Luna, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo,
Fernando Amorsolo, Fabian dela Rosa and Jose Ma.
Asuncion received a similar classical training.
After his studies, he stayed on to live and familiarize
himself with the art and culture of Europe. He had
exhibits in Madrid and then in Barcelona, where he met
his future wife Ute Schmidt who he married in 1959.
They have three children. In 1964, the family moved to
Manila, but after 4 years his wife returned to Germany
with their three sons, whereupon, Alcuaz embarked once
more on shuttling between Europe to see his family and
mount exhibits, and then to Manila, where he preferred
to do his studio at the Manila Hilton (now the Manila
Pavilion).
His works are highly favored, not only for its studied
refinement and European flair, but also for the ease and
pleasure conveyed by his choice of light, color and
composition; all of which add up to scenes which are
always quite playful but never cluttered. His love for
classical music is also apparent in this constant fluidity. 
Proclamation No. 1825, s. 2009
National Artist for Sculpture (1976)
At 46 then, Napoleon V. Abueva, a native of Bohol, was
the youngest National Artist awardee. Considered as the
Father of Modern Philippine Sculpture, Abueva has
helped shape the local sculpture scene to what it is now.
Being adept in either academic representational style or
modern abstract, he has utilized almost all kinds of
materials from hard wood (molave, acacia, langka wood,
ipil, kamagong, palm wood and bamboo) to adobe,
metal, stainless steel, cement, marble, bronze, iron,
alabaster, coral and brass. Among the early innovations
Abueva introduced in 1951 was what he referred to as
“buoyant sculpture” — sculpture meant to be
appreciated from the surface of a placid pool. In the 80’s,
Abueva put up a one-man show at the Philippine Center,
New York. His works have been installed in different
museums here and abroad, such as The Sculpture at
the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
Nine Muses of the Arts (Ramon Velasquez via
Wikimedia Commons)
Some of his major works
include Kaganapan (1953), Kiss of
Judas (1955),Thirty Pieces of Silver, The
Transfiguration (1979), Eternal Garden Memorial
Park, UP Gateway (1967), Nine Muses (1994), UP
Faculty Center, Sunburst (1994)-Peninsula Manila
Hotel, the bronze figure of Teodoro M. Kalaw in front of
National Library, and murals in marble at the National
Heroes Shrine, Mt. Samat, Bataan.
National Artist for Painting (1999)
(May 22, 1924 – June 10, 1999)
J. (Jeremias) Elizalde Navarro, was born on May 22,
1924 in Antique. He is a versatile artist, being both a
proficient painter and sculptor. His devotion to the visual
arts spans 40 years of drawing, printmaking, graphic
designing, painting and sculpting. His masks carved in
hardwood merge the human and the animal; his
paintings consists of abstracts and figures in oil and
watercolor; and his assemblages fuse found objects and
metal parts. He has done a series of figurative works
drawing inspiration from Balinese art and culture, his
power as a master of colors largely evident in his large
four-panel The Seasons (1992: Prudential Bank
collection).
A Navarro sampler includes his ’50s and ’60s fiction
illustrations for This Week of the Manila Chronicle, and
the rotund, India-ink figurative drawings for Lydia
Arguilla’s storybook, Juan Tamad. Three of his major
mixed media works are I’m Sorry Jesus, I Can’t Attend
Christmas This Year (1965), and his Homage to
Dodjie Laurel (1969: Ateneo Art Gallery collection),
and A Flying Contraption for Mr. Icarus (1984: Lopez
Museum).
Morning Mist Over Ubud, Bali (1992
National Artist for Visual Arts (2014)
(January 29, 1919 – September 1, 1998)
Francisco Coching, acknowledged as the “Dean of
Filipino Illustrators” and son of noted Tagalog novelist
and comics illustrator Gregorio Coching, was a master
storyteller – in images and in print. His illustrations and
novels were products of that happy combination of fertile
imagination, a love of storytelling, and fine
draftsmanship. He synthesized images and stories
informing Philippine folk and popular imagination of
culture.  His career spanned four decades.
Starting his career in 1934, he was a central force in the
formation of the popular art form of comics. He was a
part of the golden age of the Filipino comics in the 50’s
and 60’s. Until his early retirement in 1973, Coching
mesmerized the comics-reading public as well as his
fellow artists, cartoonists and writers.
The source of his imagery can be traced to the
Philippine culture from the 19th century to the 1960s. His
works reflected the dynamics brought about by the racial
and class conflict in Philippine colonial society in the
19th century, a theme that continued to be dealt with for
a long time in Philippine cinema. He valorized the
indigenous, untrammeled Filipino in Lapu-
Lapu and Sagisag ng Lahing Pilipino, and created the
types that affirm the native sense of self in his Malay
heroes of stunning physique. His women are beautiful
and gentle, but at the same time can be warrior-like, as
in Marabini (Marahas na Binibini) or the strong
seductive, modern women of his comics in the 50s and
60s.
There is myth and fantasy, too, featuring the grotesque
characters, vampire bats, shriveled witches, as in Haring
Ulopong. Yet, Coching grounded his works too in the
experience of war during the Japanese occupation, he
was a guerilla of the Kamagong Unit, Las Pinas branch
of the ROTC hunters in the Philippines. He also drew
from the popular post-war culture of the 50s, as seen
in Movie Fan. At this point, his settings and characters
became more urbane, and the narratives he weaved
scanned the changing times and mores, as
in Pusakal, Talipandas, Gigolo, and Maldita.

In his characters and storylines, Coching brings to
popular consciousness the issues concerning race and
identity. He also discussed in his works the concept of
the hero, which resonate through the characters on his
comics like in Dimasalang and El Vibora.
He also left a lasting influence on the succeeding
generations of younger cartoonist such as Larry Alcala,
Ben Infante and Nestor Redondo. The comics as
popular art also helped forge the practice and
consciousness as a national language.
National Artist for Painting (1976)
(December 23, 1895 – March 7, 1985)
Painting distorted human figures in rough, bold impasto
strokes, and standing tall and singular in his advocacy
and practice of what he believes is the creative
art, Victorio C. Edades emerged as the “Father of
Modern Philippine Painting”. Unlike, Amorsolo’s bright,
sunny, cheerful hues, Edades’ colors were dark and
somber with subject matter or themes depicting laborers,
factory workers or the simple folk in all their dirt, sweat
and grime. In the 1930s, Edades taught at the University
of Santos Tomas and became dean of its Department of
Architecture where he stayed for three full decades. It
was during this time that he introduced a liberal arts
program that offers subjects as art history and foreign
languages that will lead to a Bachelor’s degree in Fine
Arts. This development brought about a first in Philippine
education since art schools then were vocational
schools.
It was also the time that Edades invited Carlos “Botong”
Francisco and Galo B. Ocampo to become professor
artists for the university. The three, who would later be
known as the formidable “Triumvirate”, led the growth of
mural painting in the country. Finally retiring from
teaching at age 70, the university conferred on Edades
the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, for
being an outstanding “visionary, teacher and artist.”
The Sketch, 1928
Among his works are The Sketch, The Artist and the
Model, Portrait of the Professor, Japanese
Girl, Mother and Daughter, The Wrestlers,
and Poinsettia Girl.
National Artist for Visual Arts (2001)
(March 1, 1931 – May 9, 2005)
Born to immigrant Chinese parents Vicente Ang and
Chin Lim, Ang Kiukok is one of the most vital and
dynamic figures who emerged during the 60s. As one of
those who came at the heels of the pioneering
modernists during that decade, Ang Kiukok blazed a
formal and iconographic path of his own through
expressionistic works of high visual impact and
compelling meaning.
He crystallized in vivid, cubistic figures the terror and
angst of the times. Shaped in the furnace of the political
turmoil of those times, Ang Kiukok pursued an
expression imbued with nationalist fervor and
sociological agenda.
Some of his works include Geometric
Landscape (1969); Pieta, which won for him the bronze
medal in the 1st International Art Exhibition held in
Saigon (1962); and the Seated Figure (1979), auctioned
at Sotheby’s in Singapore.
His works can be found in many major art collections,
among them the Cultural Center of the Philippines,
National Historical Museum of Taipei, and the National
Museum in Singapore.
Ang Kiukok died on May 9, 2005
National Artist for Visual Arts (2003)
(June 3, 1931 – May 11, 1995)
Jose Joya is a painter and multimedia artist who
distinguished himself by creating an authentic Filipino
abstract idiom that transcended foreign influences. Most
of Joya’s paintings of harmonious colors were inspired
by Philippine landscapes, such as green rice paddies
and golden fields of harvest. His use of rice paper in
collages placed value on transparency, a common
characteristic of folk art. The curvilinear forms of his
paintings often recall the colorful and multilayered
‘kiping’ of the Pahiyas festival. His important mandala
series was also drawn from Asian aesthetic forms and
concepts. 
He espoused the value of kinetic energy and spontaneity
in painting which became significant artistic values in
Philippine art. His paintings clearly show his mastery of
‘gestural paintings’ where paint is applied intuitively and
spontaneously, in broad brush strokes, using brushes or
spatula or is directly squeezed from the tube and
splashed across the canvas.  His 1958 landmark
painting Granadean Arabesque,a work on canvas big
enough to be called a mural, features swipes and gobs
of impasto and sand. The choice of Joya to represent
the Philippines in the 1964 Venice Biennial itself
represents a high peak in the rise of the modern art in
the country.

Mother and Child, 1967

Manansala’s works include A Cluster of Nipa Hut, San

Granadean Arabesque, 1958 (Ateneo Art Gallery Francisco Del Monte, Banaklaot, I Believe in
Collection) God, Market Venders, Madonna of the Slums, Still
Life with Green Guitar, Via Crucis, Whirr, Nude.
Joya also led the way for younger artists in bringing out
the potentials of multimedia. He designed and painted
on ceramic vessels, plates and tiles, and stimulated
regional workshops. He also did work in the graphic arts,
particularly in printmaking.

His legacy is undeniably a large body of work of

consistent excellence which has won the admiration of
artists both in the local and international scene. Among
them are his compositions Beethoven Listening to the
Blues, and Space Transfiguration, and other works
like Hills of Nikko, Abstraction, Dimension of
Fear, Naiad, Torogan, Cityscape.

National Artist for Painting (1981)

(January 22, 1910 – August 22, 1981)

Vicente Manansala‘s paintings are described as visions

of reality teetering on the edge of abstraction. As a
young boy, his talent was revealed through the copies
he made of the Sagrada Familia and his mother’s
portrait that he copied from a photograph. After finishing
the fine arts course from the University of the
Philippines, he ran away from home and later found
himself at the Philippines Herald as an illustrator. It was
there that Manansala developed close association with
Hernando R. Ocampo, Cesar Legaspi, and Carlos
Botong Francisco, the latter being the first he admired
most. For Manansala, Botong was a master of the
human figure. Among the masters, Manansala professes
a preference for Cezanne and Picasso whom he says
have achieved a balance of skill and artistry.

He trained at Paris and at Otis School of Drawing in Los

Angeles. Manansala believes that the beauty of art is in
the process, in the moment of doing a particular painting,
closely associating it with the act of making love. “The
climax is just when it’s really finished.”