EIGHT PEOPLE from the Ateneo community bagged awards at this year’s Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards (CPMA) for Literature held last September 1 at the Rigodon Ballroom of the Peninsula Manila Hotel.
Two students, Marc Lopez and Vicah Villanueva, captured first and second place, respectively, in the Kabataan Essay category.
The other student awardee, Guelan Luarca, won first place in the Dulang May Isang Yugto category.
Meanwhile, English Department Lecturer Laurel Anne Fantauzzo garnered second place in the Essay category.
Ateneo alumni were also awarded at the 63rd CPMA, among them Mia Buenaventura (AB Comm ’94) for the Poetry for Children category, Mikael De Lara Co (BS ES ’03) for the Poetry category and Jay Crisostomo IV (BFA TA and BFA CW ’11) for the Full-Length Play category.
Kristian Cordero (MA Fil Lit ’12) won three awards, including first place for the Sanaysay category and third place for both the Tula and Maikling Kwento categories.
The era of the hashtag
Lopez’s award-winning piece is entitled “Hymns of the Mountains, Dreams of the Stars.” The piece was in answer to the Kabataan Essay category question, “What is the role of literature in the development of a nation?”
For his essay, Lopez used social media as his main angle “because it’s something that’s very close to us.”
“I just felt so much power from the way it (social media) works and from the meaning we attach to it. It touches on so many wonderful ideas, most especially those of coming out and connecting,” Lopez said.
“As a jumping-off point, it has led me to quite a lot of striking realizations as to how literature can be so empowering,” he added.
A first time entrant of the CPMA, Lopez admitted that he only discovered his desire to write when he enrolled in the Ateneo.
According to Lopez, that desire motivated him to craft his entry. He said that even if he didn’t win, he would still consider joining the CPMA an achievement.
Lopez dedicated his entry to those who served as his inspiration, namely his family, his friends, his teachers and Heights Ateneo.
“They were really [the] ones who encouraged me to continue writing and to always do better. To me, that’s priceless,” he said.
Heights is the official literary and artistic publication of the Ateneo.
Jigsaw souls
Villanueva’s “Panacea” piece for the Kabataan Essay category emphasized how literature is an important factor in creating a national identity. According to her, developing the nation starts with reading.
“[Reading] heightens the sense of perception of the reader. It develops their (readers’) taste to the point that they will be able to establish an identity,” she said.
The Director’s Lister explained that her essay’s title also means “cure-all,” which pertains how literature can help solve the ills of society by capitalizing on the intellectual economy.
Moreover, the first-time Palanca awardee also wrote about how literature changed her and how it continues to change the world.
“I have fractured eyes and a jigsaw soul, and I know that I am not the only one… I am one of the people who believe that literature can make a difference,” she wrote.
A dream come true
Luarca, the Dulang May Isang Yugto category awardee and another first time entrant into the CPMA, said he was already exposed to the Philippine arts scene as a child.
“[So] when I got the news [that I won an award], namanhid buong katawan ko! (My entire body went numb!)” Luarca said.
His one-act play “Mga Kuneho” had already been staged in the Cultural Center of the Philippines before he submitted it to the CPMA.
“Audience response was overwhelmingly positive, so I thought, ‘Ayan na o, nakasulat na rin naman (It’s here and it’s been written already anyway), might as well submit it [to the CPMA]!” Luarca said.
He cited various influences in his journey towards his first Palanca award, but he said he was mainly influenced by the place he grew up in, Santa Ana, Manila.
“[It was there that] I got to absorb the Tagalog of Manila—iba talaga ang vibrations ng language sa Manila. I wanted to celebrate that,” Luarca said.
When asked what was next for him after his Palanca victory, he simply said: “[Writing] is just one aspect out of many in my life; I’m also a son, a brother and a friend, and these are more important to me.”
“[However], I hope I get to continue my writing, continue to enjoy it, learn more about it, hone it, earn from it, even,” Luarca added.
Being the foreigner
Initially published in The Manila Review, Fantauzzo’s “Under My Invisible Umbrella” recounted the writer’s experience of color prejudice in the United States.
In her essay, Fantauzzo shared her experience of a man holding an umbrella over her head during a heavy downpour. According to her, the man had completely ignored the rest of her Filipino-American companions.
“I had friends who were darker-skinned who were also getting wet in the rain, but because the man interpreted that I was white-skinned and therefore probably wealthier, probably more deserving of his services, I was the only one who was dry,” said Fantauzzo.
“The man was not holding the umbrella above me. He was holding the umbrella above my whiteness,” she emphasized.
Fantauzzo, who recently became a dual citizen of the Philippines and the United States, also recalled the additional charges she sometimes found on her bills, charges she later called her “Dayuhan Tax” or “Foreigner Tariff.”
According to her, her motivation to write her essay came from the anger she felt in response to how immitigable her situation seemed.
“I think my role as a writer is to ask uncomfortable questions. I don’t know that I’m like a policy-maker or a solution-prescriber, but I at least want to point things out and make people ask uncomfortable questions,” said Fantauzzo.
Editor’s note: Vicah Villanueva is a member of The GUIDON’s Features staff.
