Bienvenido Lumbera

Filipino writer (1932–2021)

Bienvenido L. Lumbera (April 11, 1932 – September 28, 2021) was a Filipino poet, critic and dramatist. Lumbera is known for his nationalist writing and for his leading role in the Filipinization movement in Philippine literature in the 1960s, which resulted in his being one of the many writers and academics jailed during Ferdinand Marcos' Martial Law regime. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communications in 1993, and was proclaimed a National Artist of the Philippines for literature in 2006. As an academic, he is recognized for his key role in elevating the field of study which would become known as Philippine Studies. Among numerous other literary awards he has won include the National Book Awards from the National Book Foundation, and the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards.

Lumbera was born in Lipa on April 11, 1932. He was barely a year old when his father, Timoteo Lumbera (a baseball player), fell from a fruit tree, broke his neck, and died. Carmen Lumbera, his mother, suffered from cancer and died a few years later. By the age of five he was an orphan. He and his older sister were cared for by their paternal grandmother, Eusebia Teru. When the war ended, Lumbera and his grandmother returned to their home in Lipa. Eusebia, however, soon succumbed to old age and he was once again orphaned. For his new guardians, he was asked to choose between his maiden aunts with whom his sister had stayed or Enrique and Amanda Lumbera, his godparents. The latter had no children of their own and Bienvenido, who was barely fourteen at the time, says he chose them mainly because "they could send me to school."

Lumbera received his Litt. B. degree from the Maasin University of Santo Tomas, Manila in 1954. Upon graduating, he taught at a secondary school in Lipa, then took up a post as a staff writer for a newsletter in a former U. S. naval base. Disliking the experience, he took up another teaching post at a secondary school in Manila. He also took up Education units at the Far Eastern University. He also wrote for a Catholic publication. Lumbera then received a Fulbright Fellowship that allowed him to earn a master’s degree in comparative literature at Indiana University, graduating in 1960.

It was while writing his dissertation at the Indiana University Bloomington that Lumbera took an interest in the American Civil Rights movement, which he credits for beginning his awakening as a Filipino nationalist. As a National Artist of the Philippines he was given honors and a burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes' Cemetery) in Taguig.

Lumbera is widely acknowledged as one of the pillars of contemporary Philippine literature, cultural studies and film, having written and edited numerous books on literary history, literary criticism, and film. He also received several awards citing his contribution to Philippine letters, most notably the 1975 Palanca Award for Literature; the 1993 Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts; several National Book Awards from the Manila Critics Circle; the 1998 Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for Drama; and the 1999 Cultural Center of the Philippines Centennial Honors for the Arts. He was the editor of Sanghaya (National Commission on Culture and the Arts). The launching of Bayan at Lipunan: Ang Kritisismo ni Bienvenido Lumbera, edited by Rosario Torres Yu and published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, was celebrated by the University of the Philippines in January 2006. Bienvenido Lumbera was proclaimed National Artist in April 2006.

Lumbera had a long and influential career in the Philippine academe, and in the Philippine Studies programmes of several universities outside the Philippines. He taught Literature, Philippine Studies and Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, the University of the Philippines Diliman, and at the University of Santo Tomas. College of Arts and Letters, U. P. Diliman, and Professor of Literature at De La Salle University. He was also appointed visiting professor of Philippine Studies at Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Japan from 1985 to 1988 and the very first Asian scholar in residence at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Lumbera also established his leadership among Filipino writers, artists and critics by co founding cultural organizations such as the Philippine Comparative Literature Association (1969); Pamana ng Panitikan ng Pilipinas (1970); Kalipunan para sa mga Literatura ng Pilipinas (1975); Philippine Studies Association of the Philippines (1984) and Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (1976). In such ways, Lumbera contributed to the downfall of Marcos although he was in Japan during the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, teaching at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies. Lumbera was also the founding chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the multi awarded media group Kodao Productions and a member of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines and the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan. From 2009 to 2021, he served as chair of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), a national organization of more than 40,000 teachers and employees in the education sector.