A pilgrim, a peregrine, an advocate of Filipino originality,
Asia’s White Hope for the Nobel, a CIA Operative. These are just some of the
words used to describe National Artist F. Sionil Jose, the most widely read and
translated contemporary Filipino author.
From Moscow With Love
Manong Frankie,
as he prefers to be called, chuckles at the memory of being tagged a spy. Sitting
in the dining room of his comfortable home in Jersey Street, Quezon City, where
two Manansalas (both signed twice by the artist, but that’s another story) hang
along with other notable art pieces from the region, he says the incident
happened just as he returned from a trip to Moscow in the late 60s. His eyes
twinkle at the irony, but back then, he was worried that the accusation would
lead to the bankruptcy of La Solidaridad, a bookstore in Ermita which he
considered his bread and butter. To his amazement, people flocked to the
bookstore instead of shunning it, curious to see what a CIA front looked like.
Russian posters that he brought home were snapped up swifter than he could say Dos Vedanya. It turned out that the accusation was based
on the sponsorship he received from the Congress for Cultural Freedom for the
magazine “Solidarity” which he published. A news item in an international
publication saying that the Congress was partly funded by the CIA had triggered
the charge. He won a suit against the local columnist who tagged him a spy.
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| At home in Jersey Street |
Of course,
as a writer, Manong Frankie could not help but practice one of a spy’s basic
skills--- that of keen observation. He laughingly says though that he would not
make a good spy because he is afraid of pain.
“Prick my
skin and I will tell you everything! But I will not remember who gave me the
information. They can kill me and still I could not reveal the name.”
A Writer’s Responsibility and Social Realities
On a more
serious note, he says that one of the greatest responsibilities of a Filipino
writer is “to make Filipinos remember.”
His work of
over thirty novels and short story collections has received national and
international praise for its searing social realism. Manong Frankie credits his
experience of growing up in poverty for the authenticity found in his work.
If his life
story were to be made into a movie, it would practically write itself. Born to
a peasant family whose patriarch was swindled of the land he cleared from the
forest with his own hands, the boy Frankie grew up in a small barrio named
Cabugawan, with his grandfather as his surrogate father. His father, a Pastor,
left when he was very young. Nurtured by a strong willed woman who encouraged
his love for reading by supplying him with books borrowed from people in town,
the boy became a gifted wordsmith. He went to highschool in Manila through the
kindness of an uncle, and in college, he supported himself by writing and doing
odd jobs. He fell in love at first sight
with a colegiala, Tessie Jovellanos whose
lineage traces back to one of Jose Rizal’s Ateneo friends. The wide social
divide between the barrio lad and the colegiala,
and their subsequent elopement are hallmarks of romantic movies. Now, the boy
who used to spend his days astride a carabao in the fields of Cabugawan is a
well-travelled, multi-awarded writer with book translations numbering close to
thirty.
Asked what
he would say to the young boy on the carabao, Manong Frankie answers with one
word: “Study.”
This, he
says, was the same advice given by his grandfather on that day when the old man
took the young Frankie to the fields. Manong’s grandfather pointed out the land
he wrested from the forest, only to be stolen by landgrabbing ilustrados. Tears streamed down the old man’s weathered
face, as he told the boy, “Ag-adal ka
tapno di ka mairarem” (study so you will not be oppressed). At this
recollection, Manong Frankie’s voice trembles a bit. He says this image of his
grandfather inhabits his consciousness to this day.
“Bakya”
Another
defining moment in Manong Frankie’s life which informed his work occurred
during his graduation from Elementary School. Though he went to school barefoot
as did his classmates, he asked his mother for a pair of shoes for his
graduation. He was class Salutatorian and would be delivering a speech during
the ceremonies. But his mother said they did not have any money to buy a pair.
Spying a piece of wood in their house, Manong Frankie with typical Ilocano
ingenuity, carved out a pair of “bakya”
(wooden clogs) for himself so he would not go barefoot. On the day of the
graduation, the 12-year-old Frankie noticed that he was the only one not
wearing shoes. When it came time for him to go up the stage for his speech, he
carefully lifted one foot at a time, so as not to make any sound that would
call attention to his “bakya.” It was the first time in his life that he felt
class conscious. “Ganito pala ang
mahirap,” he remembers thinking.
Asked if it
saddened him, he says it did not. It only made him realize the difference
between classes.
Class Struggle
Thus, his
work shows not only the plight of the poor, their oppression and struggles, but
also the circumstances that led to such situations. His most famous work, the
Rosales Saga, which chronicled a hundred years of Philippine history, bringing
to life the betrayals and oppression of the masses, was originally conceived as
a quartet. Manong Frankie says that he had plotted out the whole thing in his
mind way back in 1945 as interconnected novels. The fourth novel, “The
Pretenders” was supposed to conclude the saga. It ended on a negative note with
the suicide of the main character, Tony Samson.
This reflected the author’s view of what was happening then. He says the
suicide was an allegory about the need
to destroy the old to give way for the new.
With the declaration of Martial Law,
Manong Frankie witnessed how the young activists fought, and he realized that
there was still hope. So, he conceived of the fifth novel, “Mass” on a plane
ride to Paris. Unlike his earlier novels that had been written over a number of
years, “Mass” was completed in one month of feverish writing in Paris. “Mass”
traces the journey of Pepe Samson (the illegitimate son of Tony Samson of “The
Pretenders”) from a hedonistic, drug-dealing young man to a revolutionary.
Hope in the Youth
Like Jose
Rizal before him, Manong Frankie places his hope in the youth to bring the
country out of what he perceives to be a quagmire of corruption and injustice.
One of his wishes is for Filipinos, specially the young ones, is to develop the
reading habit, not because he is a writer who owns a bookstore, but
because of a more profound reason. He feels that we as a people had dissipated
numerous opportunities for growth because we are shallow. “If people do not
read, they become shallow,” he says.
As a child,
Manong Frankie was a voracious reader. He was a ten-year-old student in a
public elementary school, when he read the “Noli Me Tangere,” the “El
Filibusterismo,” “Don Quixotedela Mancha,” and “My Antonia.” At a tender age,
he had also read the Greek myths. He laments that now, students of public elementary
schools do not read such work, and attend classes that are much shorter than
the 7am to 5pm schedules that they used to have.
The Writer as Nationalist
For someone
just a year shy of 90, Manong Frankie continues his disciplined approach to
writing. He wakes up at 1:00 am, types away at his trusty old typewriter, then
takes a nap and afterwards goes to the bookstore, where he also does some
writing. Passion for the written word and for the message he hopes to bring
fuel this discipline. His loving wife Manang Tessie is his first “reader”
sometimes reading behind his back as he types his manuscript. Manong Frankie says
his wife is a very strong and caring woman. “She fights for me and supports me.
Sometimes, she upbraids me for not being diplomatic enough.”
If diplomacy is not Manong Frankie’s
strong suit, generosity with time, talent and treasure certainly is. This
generosity is shared by Manang Tessie. Perhaps her centering presence is one of
the things that assuage the loneliness of a writer, who Manong Frankie says is
“The loneliest of all creatures” because “When we write, we are truly alone.”
The venerable writer may be called a
peregrine, a pilgrim and a spy, but Manong Frankie, dubbed by fellow National Artist
Nick Joaquin as Asia’s hope for the Nobel, is above all, a nationalist. He
writes for his countrymen so that they will remember. For as he says, “Memory
continues to be our strongest and firmest anchor to Filipinas.”
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| With fellow National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera and other writers at La Solidaridad |
He is working on a new novel which will be
different from his last novel, the allegorical “Feet of Juan Bacnang”. The
novel in progress with the working title “Esperanza” will be an “exposition of
theory versus practice”.
It is a fitting title for the new year of
hope that awaits all of us.
The article was published in the January 18, 2014 edition of Business Mirror
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