Alejandro Roces

Through the years, Roces has won numerous awards, including the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, the Diwa ng Lahi Award, the Tanging Parangal of the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining, and the Rizal Pro Patria Award. He was finally bestowed the honor as National Artist of Literature on 25 June 2003.

In 2001, Roces was appointed as Chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). Roces also became a member of the Board of Trustees of GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) and maintained a column in the Philippine Star called Roses and Thorns.

In 1994, Roces was the chairman of the Board of Jurors for the 1994 Metro Manila Film Festival, in which he and the board made the unprecedented decision not to award any film entry that year six of the major awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Director.

During his freshman year in the University of Arizona, Roces won Best Short Story for We Filipinos are Mild Drinkers. Another of his stories, My Brother’s Peculiar Chicken, was listed as Martha Foley’s Best American Stories among the most distinctive for years 1958 and 1951. Roces did not only focus on short stories alone, as he also published books such as Of Cocks and Kites (1959), Fiesta (1980), and Something to Crow About (2005). Of Cocks and Kites earned him the reputation as the country's best writer of humorous stories. It also contained the widely anthologized piece “My Brother’s Peculiar Chicken”. Fiesta, is a book of essays, featuring folk festivals such as Ermita's Bota Flores, Aklan's Ati-atihan, and Naga's Peñafrancia.

Alejandro Reyes Roces (13 July 1924 – 23 May 2011) was a Filipino author, essayist, dramatist and a National Artist of the Philippines for literature. He served as Secretary of Education from 1962 to 1965, during the term of Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal.