Canon

- Those works are considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the most important
to read and study.

The Order of National Artists (Orden ng Pambansang Alagad ng Sining) is the highest national
recognition given to Filipino individuals who have made significant contributions to the
development of Philippine arts:
The order is jointly administered by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (INCCA)
and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and conferred by the President of the
Philippines upon recommendation by both institutions.

SELECTED CANONICAL AUTHORS:

JOSE GARCIA VILLA

- is considered one of the finest contemporary poets regardless of race or language Villa,
who lived in Singalong, Manila, introduced the reversed consonance rhyme 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, Bolingen, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards. He
used Doveglion (Dove, Eagle, Lion) as penname, 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.
He was one of those Filipinos, along with Rizal and Joaquin, included in World Poetry:
An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (2000).

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.
EDITH TIEMPO
- She was one of the finest Filipino writers in English whose works are characterized by
a remarkable fusion of style and substance, of craftsmanship and insight
- Her poems are intricate verbal transfigurations of significant experiences as revealed, in
two of her much-anthologized pieces, "The Little Marmoset" and "Bonsai". As a
fictionist, Tempo 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.

Tempo's published works include the novels:

- A Blade of Fern (1978)
- The Native Coast (1979)
- The Alien Corn(1992);
The poetry collections
- The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems (1966)
- The Charmer's Box and Other Poems(1993)
and the short story collection
- Abide, Joshua, and Other Stories (1964).

NICK JOAQUIN

- 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.
- 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

MERLIE ALUNAN
- She graduated in Silliman University with an MA in Creative Writing in 1974. She
teaches at the Creative Writing Center, University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban
College. She lives in Tacloban City.
- Awards: Lillian Jerome Thornton Award for Nonfiction; Don Carlos Palanca Memorial
Award for Literature; National Book Award; Sunthorn Phu Literary Awards; Ani ng
Dangal.
- She is set to receive her seventh Palanca win. She won First Prize for Poetry in English
for her collection entitled Tales of the Spider Woman. She has received numerous
awards for her writing, including the Lillian Jerome Thornton Award for Nonfiction,
Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, and the Philippines Free Press Literary
Awards.

Her books of poetry include:

- Hearthstone
- Sacred Tree (Anvil, 1993)
- Amina among the Angels (UP Press, 1997).

Her other works also include Kailin

- 100 Years of Negros Oriental and the anthology Fern Garden

- An Anthology of Women Writing in the South.

BIENVENIDO LUMBERA
- is the National Artist for Literature in 2006. He 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 Sarling
Bayan, Apat na Dulang May Musika, 2004, "Agunyas sa Hacienda Luisita,"
Pakikiramay, 2004.
VIRGILIO S. ALMARIO
- He is the National Artist for Literature in 2003. He is known as Rio Alma, 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.

- He has also redefined how 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.

FRANCISCO ARCELLANA
- 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).

HAMADO V. HERNANDEZ
- He was first selected in 1973. He was born in Haronoy, Bulacan, but grew up in Tondo,
Manila. His poems and novels written purely in the Filipino mother tongue tackle
issues of the poor and working class. One of his works is the book titled Luhang
Buwaya. There were two National Artists in Literature selected in the year 1973. One
for Filipino language and the other for the English language.
F. SIONIL JOSE
- He is a native of Rosales, Pangasinan. He's the 2001 Philippine National Artist for
Literature. He often gleans local legends and epics from his hometown as well as from
the ilocos region to include in his short stories and novels. His works are also consistent
in depicting the themes of class struggle, colonialism, social justice and national
sovereignty. "The Feet of Juan Bacnang” is one of his works.

LADONIS DURADO
- A Cebuano poet, illustrator, and graphic designer. He was born on August 25, 1975, in
Cebu City, Philippines. He is a fine arts graduate from the University of San Carlos,
Philippines.

- He has published four books of Cebuano poetry, Dili Tanang Matagak Mahagbong
(2008), : Minugbo Alanq sa Mugbo og Kalipay (2009), ; Lisay sa Bugan (2016), and
Pahinungod sa Di Hintungdan (2017).

- In 1999, Durado was the recipient of the Emmanuel Lacaba Prize for Cebuano poetry
awarded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

ERROL MERQUITA
- Won 1st Prize in the 2015 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the country's
most prestigious literary award.

- Won in the Tula Para sa mga Bata Category for "Ang lisang Paa Ng Tsinelas". It is a
collection of poems on children displaced by war and climate change. It portrays the
children's fears and worries during armed conflicts or impending typhoons. It also
depicts the threats they face, their weaknesses as well as their strengths, dreams and
hopes for peace and change "Isla Verde" - named after an area in Davao City populated
by marginalized indigenous peoples is Mr. Merquita's second Palanca Award, having
won 2nd Prize in 2011 in the Short Story in Cebuano Category.

- In 2010, he won 2nd Prize in the Bisaya Fiction Writing Contest of the Davao Writers
Guild for his story "Kinsa ang Nagpatay so Pari sa Calinan?"

Errol A. Merquita's works:

- "Ang lisang paa ng tsinelas" (tula Para sa mga Bata Category) ; "Isla verde" (2nd prize
(2011) Short Story in Cebuano Category) ;
 - "Kinsa ang nagpatay sa pari sa calinan?" (2nd prize (2010) Bisaya Fiction Writing
Contest of the Davao Writers Guild ; Unsaon Pagpatay sa Ok-ok ( November 6, 2016);
Katong Nagbinahinay ta sa Saging (February 15, 2009)
- Cebuano - Payag (2010); Irong Latagaw

JHOANNA LYNN CRUZ

- She is currently an Associate Professor of creative writing and literature at the
University of the Philippines Mindanao.

- She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Master of Arts in Language
and Literature, both with High Distinction, from De La Salle University-Manila. She is
the founding member of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators organization. She
considers herself a Dabawenya, like many migrants who have come to love and live in
Davao City. was selected as the first Philippine representative to the Tokyo International
Literary Festival.

- She is the author of Women Loving (2010), the first sole-author anthology of lesbian
stories in the Philippines, which is also available as an eBook entitled Women on Fire
(2015).